11 Plumanara

True to her word, Juliette had indeed introduced me to several of her oldest children, when we arrived back at the house. We didn’t speak again of anything that had passed between us in the garden, and I had a feeling we never would— at least in the foreseeable future. After meeting Juliette’s oldest children, Violet whisked me away to a suite of rooms that she and her husband Viktor shared, that was where we found Irene playing with makeup. There were clouds of sparkles in the air from something Irene had sprayed on her hair, and her face practically looked like it was reflecting the sun, with how much glittery eyeshadow and powders she had put on. I knew nothing about makeup, beyond pinching my cheeks, back when I had been alive, things like makeup hadn’t existed. Irene spotted me in the reflection of the mirror as we approached and squealed, “Your turn!” Pulling me into a chair and attacking me with all kinds of creams and powders and sprays that I felt dizzy and light headed by the time she had finished.

I stared at myself in the reflection of the mirror— she hadn’t really done as much as it felt like she had— I mean, I definitely sparkled, yay, but beyond that, she had just added something to make my eyelashes darker, and my cheeks pinker, and my lips— “Um, my lips are purple.”

“Yeah, to match your eyes.” Irene grinned as she fluttered her eyelashes, as if that made what she was saying more important somehow. Glitter fluffed off of Irene as she moved, and I tried to not breathe any of whatever was on her face, as she jumped up and went looking for Violet. “Be right back!”

I sighed. So, was this going to be my life now? Makeup and clothes and exciting nights out someplace wild with a ‘good time’— as Irene had put it. My life had been much simpler. I blinked, and the sparkly girl with purple eyes and purple lips blinked too. No, before I could even have a life, I would need to survive carrying the Nephilim child— I scowled and the girl in the mirror did too. I would much rather be out in the garden right now, then have Irene and Juliette fuss over me… I’d rather be enjoying my life, while I had a second chance at it, even if it was just for a while. Irene came dancing back with Violet, as my mind began to wander, and I made sure to snap out of my funk, and back into this moment— while it was nice that Violet could alter my mood, I didn’t want her to sense this one. I made myself smile, as Irene and Violet dumped armfuls of dresses onto a couch behind me.

“And now,” Violet declared, “you get to pick a dress!!”

There was something I seemed to like to do— pick out beautiful clothing, that was, at least, since I had gotten used to how clothing felt on my body. I forced myself to look away from my reflection and back at the pile of dresses. I spun on the stool I was sitting on, “any suggestions?”

Of course, both Irene and Violet had a lot to say, each picking up dress after dress and holding them up for me, almost overlapping each other in their excited chatter, which dress was better than this dress or her dress until I stopped them, because I was worried they actually might one to blows about which dress was best. I made them each pick out their top two favorites, and then I went to inspect them. Irene, as I probably should have guessed, had picked out two very low cut dresses with fabrics so sheer, it might as well have been see-through. I cringed, as I looked at the canary yellow dress, and the orange dress she’d picked out, letting them drop lightly back onto the couch.

“Ouch.” Irene pouted, as if I had hurt her feelings.

“I’m sorry, they are beautiful but-“

“I get it,” Irene muttered, waving her arm around, “they’re not you. Let’s see what our Miss Violet has picked out for you.”

Violet had picked out two dresses, both were made of the same soft fabric, somewhat stretchy, but not see-through, like Irene’s dresses. One was a pale pink, like a rose just about to bloom, soft under the sunset— it had long sleeves with a sweetheart neckline and a plunging back with several straps that were bows, it was beautiful, but not quite what I was feeling at the moment, I gently put down the dress, knowing I’d probably ask to borrow it in the future. The second dress Violet had picked was forest green, it had a low v-cut neckline, with braided gold straps and a loose back that hung open. It reminded me of what I’d seen pictured in the Greek era texts I’d seen on the web. I held it up to myself, and smiled, yes, this was the one.

“And we have a WINNER!” Violet smiled, letting out almost a sigh of relief. “Honestly Cass, I started to wonder if you were going to like anything we were showing you.”

“It’s beautiful.” I replied, returning Violet’s smile.

“Excellent, well. Let’s all get changed, it’s time to head to Plumanara.”

The three if yes scrambled out of our current clothing and into the dresses we’d each picked out, leaving a mess of dresses everywhere.

“Sorry about the mess!” Irene mumbled, looking only just a little contrite.

“It’s not a problem, I promise. Now, Viktor said to be there by nine, so we should head out— I’m sure the limo is ready!” Violet seemed to float to the door, her feet dancing in her strappy shoes. Irene and I followed her out of the house, where true to her word, there was a limo waiting in the roundabout. The three of us bundled into the back, and the limo took off down the drive. “Did you have a good conversation with Juliette?” Violet asked me as we headed towards the iron gates leading off the property.

I nodded. There were things I could not tell Violet, obviously, and there were other things that I couldn’t say in front of Irene… “Yes.” I stared at the weeping willows in the distance as we drove down the drive. It was incredible that that world, the world of the garden existed back there, hidden from view. “Thank you, Violet.” I turned from the window to smile at her. Violet had married into Juliette’s family, but she reminded me of Juliette so much, it almost hurt. I wondered if I could prove to Juliette that I was worthy of her trust, loyalty and friendship. I had made a lot of mistakes. We left the property behind much quicker than it had felt on the way in, the driver closing the gate behind us with a bang, before setting off out of the wooded area and back into the populated urban streets. I again watched the world of color and shape fly by the window, this time taking us into the city, winding us down roads that were narrow, and taking us out into a more business warehouse district. I had been staring at pictures of maps on Google, trying to understand the city in which I, or at least Cassandra lived. Vancouver was definitely an interesting place— there were parks, and museums, art galleries, high end shops and malls, skyscrapers, business districts, tourist attractions… and warehouses near the docks. The limo slowed in this area, pulling into an alleyway, I peered into the dark street, no street lights, empty buildings, surely we were in the wrong place.

“Eeeeeee!” Irene squealed, “”I can’t wait for you to see this place! You’re going to love it!!” Irene’s seafoam dress glowed in the limo’s dim lights, as she pushed open the back door, and stepped out onto the dark street. I cast a glance at Violet,

“Don’t worry, you’ll be safe here with me. I promise. Viktor and his brother’s own the club, they actually opened it as a joke, just a few supernaturals playing poker in an abandoned warehouse,” she chuckled, “but then they wanted dancing, and music— and slowly word got out…” she shrugged. “And the supernaturals, well they came flocking to the doors. Vik and his brothers had to renovate, hire staff, buy products, and suddenly they had a business. I joke that it keeps them honest— which they think is hilarious because it’s a club. There isn’t anything else like Plumanara out there, that lets young supernaturals experience dancing, music, or even drinking, this way. Of course, there have been a few problems, and because it’s popular, we’ve had to add security measures, but outside the family property, this is the next safest place I feel.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of this, not even if I understood half of it, but I nodded and tried not to let my worry, that Irene had already disappeared into the dark, in front of me. I tossed Violet a smile.

“Ready?”

As ready as I was ever going to be. Violet and I exited the limo, which sped off into the night once the back door shut with a finality that was not lost upon me. I followed Violet who was already cutting across the street, and around the corner of a warehouse just ahead. I lost sight of her for a moment as I scrambled to keep up. Rounding the corner, I was hit by a wall of surprise, for what I hadn’t been able to see or hear from the ally around the corner was so obvious to me now— just across the narrow road was a warehouse with loud techno beats flooding the street, a line of people, most likely all supernatural beings, wound its way along the side of the building, and up a walkway to a door where I could already see Tom standing, a headset on his head, and a clipboard in his hand, as he checked names and opened the door, ushering people in, while others exited on a set of doors beside him. Juliette was headed directly towards the doors, cutting through the line, despite the groans and complaints of the other vampires, shapeshifters and Fae gathered. The doors swung open, and I could see bright neon lights reflecting from within. I ran to catch up to Violet, out of breath by the time I weaseled my way past the crowd and through the line.

“Ahhhh, Lookie, who do we have here?” Tom grinned, “but my Lady, Violet and her lost cause.”

Violet rolled her eyes, and I tried not to be insulted by the rude werewolf, biting my tongue to not say anything that I might later regret. “You going to let us in, Tom?” Violet smiled, but I could tell she was just trying to be polite, “Viktor is waiting for us.”

Tom nodded and opened the door. Electric energy spilled from inside the club. Violet slipped in through the open door and dragged me along with her. Just inside there was a coat check area, where a shapeshifter caught Violet’s eye, Violet shook her head, as if responding to the woman’s vacant marble blue eyes question, and instead of taking me further into the club, from where I could see so many interesting things, like mirrored walls, with shelves full of glass bottles, and ice? Or was that steam rising from every which way you looked, a raised clear podium with a keyboard and a vampire controlling the music— lights flashing, so many people dancing… I felt like my eyes might pop out of my socket from all the sights flooding my senses, or that my head might fall off from swiveling… no, instead of taking me there, Violet walked up to a wall beside the coat check, and pushed a round shape in a portion of molding, opening a secret door with stairs leading up. Intrigued, I allowed Violet to manhandle me into the secret doorway, which then shut us in.

In this secret hallway, I couldn’t even hear the music from the other side of the wall. Violet was making her way up the narrow staircase, and it was narrow, only wide enough for one person at a time to either ascend or descend. Curious, I followed, ascending into what was probably the rafters of the building.

“You see,” Violet’s voice floated down to me as she continued to climb, “when they realized that they had to renovate the building anyways, Viktor, and his brothers realized that this was also a good opportunity to put together a safe house of their own. It’s fully soundproof, and covers the club below— they have their security cameras up here, and a room for their team, a few rooms they play high stake poker games in with whales,”

I paused, mid stair, exhausted. “Are we almost there?”

From above me Violet laughed, “Yes, I’m already here, just waiting for you,” I looked up and sure enough, Violet was standing looking down at me from the last step on the narrow staircase. I forced my legs to climb the last few steps, and emerged onto the landing. Violet laughed at me as I stood there, legs shaking from climbing so many steps. “I had forgotten how tired humans can get from simple exertion.”

“Oh, I’m fine.” I lied, my fingers clenching the metal railing as I steadied myself. I took this moment to look around. It appeared like we’d entered a lobby of some sort, there were a few green plants, plastic from what it looked like, under the potted ceiling lights, and two arm chairs with a table in between. There was a wall of glass with two glass doors with brass or gold handles just beyond the arm chairs and potted plants, with a keypad and intercom, cutting us off from the rest of the floor. Taking a deep breath I took a few hazardous steps and collapsed into one of the arm chairs. “Now what?”

“Well, if you’re ready, I’ll show you around.” Violet laughed.

Groaning, I stood and gritted my teeth. “Ready.”

Violet pulled out a security card from her purse, and scanned it through a swipe on the keypad. The glass door swung inward, and we passed through the doors into the hallway beyond. “Here,” Violet gestured immediately to our right hand side, “this is where we have security cameras,” she opened the door, and I could see a werewolf sitting with his back to us, feet on the desk watching several large TV monsters. “Hi Dan!” Dan waved, but didn’t turn to look at us, and Violet closed the door, continuing down the hall. “Here,” Violet pointed at several glass doors, behind which I could see light, and people, “high stakes poker games,” she continued to walk, “there are a few security rooms, in which the team have a break room, and a few bunk beds, should they need to crash after their shift instead of finding their way home.” We turned a corner in the hallways and came to another set of doors, these doors were thick oak, with a few stained glass panels through which light glowed from the other side, “And this,” Violet turned to beam at me, “is the safe house.” Violet pulled a key from her purse, it wasn’t a key like Cassandra’s house key, or even like a security swipe key like Violet had used to get us into this top floor through the glass doors, no this key looked ancient and had a glow to it, like it was magical. “Yes,” Violet replied, as if to my thoughts, “it is magical. Viktor had a witch spell them for us, as well as put up safety guards on the entirety of this floor. We have a few spare keys inside, one will be for you.” Violet twisted the key in the lock and pushed open the door. “Come on in.”

I walked into the room, it felt like a house, like Cassandra, or Violet’s house had felt— I heard Violet shut the door behind me. This areas was clearly designed as an entryway, with a coat rack, shoe stand, welcome rug, leading down a short hallway—

“Oh, hi guys!” Viktor, head appeared at the end of the short hallway, “I was wondering when you’d get here. Took your sweet time.” At the end of the hallway, the room opened up into a great room, couches and coffee tables, a giant rug covering the sandy hardwood flooring… Viktor flopped into an armchair, a glass of something that smelt like cinnamon over ice in his hand. Violet and I joined him, Violet immediately dropping dramatically onto one of the couches. “Please, come in, sit!” Viktor urged, “We don’t bite.” He flashed me a grin, as Violet giggled. I cautiously made my way into the great room, and sat on one of the arm chairs facing Viktor. “Now, there will be time for house tours later, first, to the reason we’re even here… Cassandra.”

Yes, the real reason I was here. I kept feeling like I was already cemented into this body, but I knew that was an allusion, at least, right now. I tried to regain my sense of urgency, I needed to figure this out now, before my time running Cassandra’s body finished, and she took over again, demoting me to the backseat of her consciousness. “Yes, I haven’t forgotten.” I heard my voice whisper in the quiet space.

“I talked to my mother,” Viktor’s piercing stare actually felt like daggers hitting me.

“Oh?”

“Viktor, be kind.” Violet cautioned.

“Don’t worry, my love. I am.” Viktor blinked and I turned away, not able to keep his gaze. “Turns out, you were more than just the daughter of Eve. Imagine my surprise when I found out that you are also technically my aunt.”

I heard Violet gasp, and I closed my eyes. “What else did Juliette tell you?”

“Enough,” Viktor’s voice floated to me, as I continued to squeeze my eyes shut. “There is much, ‘Auntie’ Cassandra, that I would like to discuss, but until that day— let us focus on helping you survive the next portion of your journey. It’s not going to be easy.”

I sighed, and forced myself to look at him, my nephew. “Did your mother explain my idea to you?”

“Yes, and I think it will work.”

“What plan?” Violet cut in, trying to catch my eye.

“Cassandra needs to drink vampire blood over the next few months, she’ll need to die with it in her system— but it can’t be so much that the Nephilim sense it, ever. It will have to be small doses until near the end. I-”

“It can’t be you, Viktor.” Violet interrupted.

“And why not?”

“I love you darling, but it would be best if it was from a Pureblood, and even though you are wonderful, you are not a Pureblood.”

Viktor growled, “So you’re suggesting, what? You? Absolutely not, this is too dangerous, too risky and I won’t allow-”

“Viktor, Cassandra needs help— and I can help. I know the danger and risks, but I am here, ready and willing, and you would do no less if you were able.”

Viktor sighed, sounding defeated. “Well, do we at least know how long we have before Lucas decides to take you, Cassandra?”

I shook my head, no. I had no clue, it could be tomorrow, it could be in a few months. “Cassandra, I mean Cassandra Pirot, will want to finish school— graduate. She’ll push for it, and I’ll back her with Lucas. That gives us at least six months to figure it all out.” I bit my lip, “but we can’t tell her. Cassandra can’t know. All this? It has to stay a secret right until the very end.”

“Agreed.” Viktor mumbled, pushing himself up off his arm chair and running his hands through his hair. “I’m going to prep a team, to recover you from the cemetery when the time comes— I also think it might not be enough to just have you die with vampire blood in your system, I think you need to have some shot directly into your heart after you’ve ‘died.’”

I shivered. Yes, my impending doom.

“We should start tonight.” Violet whispered, “and once a month from here out.” Violet stood, “Viktor, show Cassandra around the apartment, while I prepare. Cassandra, pick out a room, tell Viktor how you want it painted and decorated, and I’ll start working on it in my spare time. You’ll have to live here for a while, stay out of sight. Anything you’ll think you’ll want to need, I’ll start collecting and gathering.”

I stood, “Violet,”

“It’s okay Cassandra, if this works, you’ll be able to help other girls get away from the Nephilim, so if I can help you in any way, it will be a pleasure. I don’t want any more girls to suffer being marked and cursed by the Fallen.”

“Follow me,” Viktor gestured, as he started to leave the room, casting one last glance at his wife before we re-entered the hallway, heading into another part of the house. I followed Viktor, feeling numb. All this trouble, I could have avoided, if I had never allowed myself to fall for Lucifer. Viktor led me down the hallway and pointed out that there were bedrooms and suites for each of his older brothers, and their wives— three suites, besides his and Violets. There was also two ‘guest’ suites which were to be used in emergency for his family, or for someone who really needed a place to hide. “Luckily, we haven’t had to use the suites for emergencies, but sometimes when Violet and I don’t want to deal with my whole family, we come here. There is also a kitchen off the great room, where sometimes we prepare appies for some of our non-vampire guests. It’s also where we keep a blood storage, in case we get trapped here. I’ll make sure it says stocked for you, for when the time comes. One of the guest suites will be yours, indefinitely. You are family, after all. The other? Well, hopefully, if you survive this ordeal, we’ll be able to offer sanctuary to other women, we will help flee the Nephilim.” Viktor stopped at a door, and pushed it open, “Your room, Cassandra.”

I walked into the suite. There was a sitting room, with white crisp walls, and forest green velvet furniture, live edge beach wood tables, lamps made to look like flowers with glass and brass— and a giant chandelier which looked like white feathers falling from the ceiling. “It’s perfect.” I whispered, walking through the suite reverently.

“You haven’t even seen the best part yet,” Viktor grinned, and led me through the room, opening a door, I almost hadn’t seen, into a vast bedroom. The furniture was white, a large canopy bed with lace curtains, white wicker arm chairs and settee, a huge wardrobe closet— and then I saw it, a window, a giant window which took up most of the side of the wall. “This is the only room with a window this large, in fact one of the only rooms with windows, since the majority of the rooms are on the inside of the floor.”

“Thank you.” I would have wandered over to the open window, but I also knew we probably should be getting back to Violet.

“I mean, we don’t mind. We can handle sunlight, but we’d prefer to not have to deal with it, so windowless is just easier.”

“I’m serious, thank you Viktor, I mean you and Violet don’t have to help me…”

“You’re family Cassandra. There isn’t much my family wouldn’t do to protect their family.”

I nodded. “Let’s get back to Violet, I’m sure she’s wondering where we are.”

Viktor sighed, “And there isn’t much I wouldn’t do to protect my wife.”

I heard the hidden warning in Viktor’s voice, and nodded, yes—- I understood that feeling all too well… We headed back the way we came, neither speaking, both consumed with our own thoughts, and worries— should this fail. Violet was waiting for us in the great room, she had turned on music from somewhere and was dancing in her white dress, spinning around, arms raised, her dark hair flying wildly in the wind she was creating for herself. She looked magical. Magical and fierce. Viktor grinned and muttered something under his breath, and ran the rest of the way into the room, closing the distance between himself and Violet— pulling her into his arms, they began to dance together— looking surreal, powerful and unbreakable. Like the music box I had found in Cassandra’s room, under her bed, the one with pictures of her birth father, Eli… When you opened the box, this couple spun, obviously not real, like those two— beautiful and magical, like them, dancing to music. Violet laughed, it sounded like little crystals reverberating.

“On the coffee table Cassandra, drink it all.” Violet’s voice floated to me from where she was wrapped in Viktor’s arms.

I made my way into the room, and sat on the arm chair, glancing at the table where there was indeed a glass with a straw out of it. “And what will it taste like?” I asked, suddenly aware it was blood.

“Just drink it Cassandra,” Viktor growled at me, clearly annoyed I was interrupting his mood.

Sighing I picked up the cup, I sniffed the contents, it didn’t smell bad— but it was thick as it sloshed around in the cup. I groaned.

“We talked about this Cass, it’s the only way.”

I knew Viktor was right, but it didn’t make me feel any better about what I was about to do. “Cheers,” I whispered feeblily and then downed the whole cup. I gagged as the liquids went down my throat— not because it tasted bad, I tried to not even taste it— but because it was warm.

“Try to keep it down,” I heard Violet’s voice tell me. I would definitely try, but the whole room was spinning, and everything within me wanted to spit up the liquid that had just gone into my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, as I tried to not let the dizziness get to me. “Yeah,” I felt a cool hand on my forehead and another on my arm, “it’s not going to feel nice for a moment, just wait— the feeling will pass.” I knew it was Violet next to me, but I couldn’t open my eyes.

“I’m going to be sick.”

“No, you aren’t.” Viktor’s commanding voice. told me, “you are Cassandra, daughter of Eve, and from all the stories I’ve heard of you— you were one tough cookie. Now, open your eyes.”

“Aren’t you bossy,” I hissed, but even though I was mad, and frustrated and feeling ill, I obeyed. The room had stopped spinning, but all the lights were brighter, and the music seemed louder. I groaned.

“Cassandra, look at me.” I looked over at Violet, she seemed to glow in the bright light, and not because of the sparkly makeup, I could see light around her like a halo… What was I seeing? I looked up at Violet, as if she had all the answers, but she shook her head. “I don’t know. They say everyone gives off energy, that’s what I’ve always thought it was.” Violet paused, “Look Cass, you’re going to start to feel the effects of my blood now, after a while they won’t be as severe, but tonight— you’re going to feel like you’re on top of the world, once the sick feeling has past.”

I wanted to ask her how she knew, but Violet probably wouldn’t tell me.

“She knows, because last year we had to shut down a dealer on the street outside the club— he was selling vampire blood to other supernaturals as a drug.” Viktor hissed. “So please, be careful and maybe, start thinking about practicing putting up mind blocks— you don’t want just anyone inside your head.”

“Um, babe?” Violet muttered, hiding a smile, just as I would have said, too late, but she beat me to it.

“Oh, right.” And just like that we were laughing, howling uncontrollably, even though it was far from funny, and I knew he was right. There were a lot of things that I didn’t understand about this modern world, and how vampires had evolved since my days as a human. I forgot I was feeling sick, I put down the glass— or rather Violet took it from me and went into the kitchen to wash it— and suddenly I felt like the entire world was exploding, sights, sounds— not too loud or bright, but so alive, like how they used to be, at the dawn of time.

“I want to go dancing, can we do that?” I felt so alive, energy and electricity running through me— I jumped onto the chair, and threw my arms in the air, spinning in circles in my green dress, embracing the sounds of the music. “Wow, can you hear that beat?” I opened my eyes, there was a light pulsating around Viktor, similar to Violet’s but not as bright— “Ahhhh, so you’re a mixed blood, I thought so…”

“Umm, Vi?” Viktor took my arms and helped me off the chair, “I think it would be a good time to take Cassandra and go down into the club, find Irene and maybe dance until this high wears off?”

Violet appeared in the doorway, and laughed, “What? Can’t handle your slightly intoxicated six thousand year old human aunt?”

I tossed a look over my shoulder at Violet, “Can we go dancing please?”

Violet skipped over to me, “Sure Cass, we can do that. In fact, let’s head down now, I’m sure Irene has started to wonder where we’ve gotten to.” Violet hooked arms with me, as if I couldn’t stand on my own— ridiculous. “See you later Vik.”

Viktor grabbed Violet’s free arm, and pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Be careful Vi, make sure to get her home safe, I’ll wait up for you.”

“I got it Vik.” Violet cast one more look at Viktor, and then we started back out of the safehouse. “Okay Cassandra, think you can make it?”

“Phshhhh, yeah. I can walk on my own!” I pushed Violet’s arm off of me, and realized even walking felt different, like I didn’t want my feet to touch the ground, like they didn’t need to. “I can fly…” I giggled.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Violet grabbed my arm again, and helped me through the oak door, shutting it firmly behind us. “Tell you what though, I’ll let you run until you hit the glass doors, and then we’re walking okay?”

I didn’t need to be told twice, I pulled my pumps from my feet and dropped them on the floor. “Read, set, go!” I whispered to myself, even though I wasn’t racing any of my siblings this time. My heart twinged only briefly, when I realized in that moment, that all my siblings were dead, ancient history— that I had neither cared back then to be involved in their lives, and now I never would know them. Viktor was right, the only thing that mattered in this life was protecting one’s family. I shook it off, this feeling of guilt and I ran. I ran so fast that I knew my feet were no longer hitting the floor, and the walls and doors became a blur on either side of me, I was the wind, I was the sun and moon and stars and-

“Cass, watch out!”

Too late, my whole body whammed into the glass wall that led into the second floor. “OUCH!” I fell backwards and into Violet’s arms.

“I tried to warn you,” Violet muttered and I could tell she was trying not to laugh at me. “You really are going to feel that in the morning.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” I moaned, I could feel it right now— every sensation of pain throbbing, and as soon as it was there, it was gone.

“Are you sure you’re just a normal human?” Violet asked me as we went through the doors and she passed me my pumps.

“Of course.” I mumbled, as the last of the throbbing pain subsided. “An original, I’ll point out.” I pushed one pump back onto my foot, then the other. “Hasn’t been out of the box in a few thousand years, original human no less.”

“Hmmm interesting.”

“What’s interesting?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Violet smiled, but I could still see her concern as she ushered me towards the stairs. “You first, but maybe don’t run.”

I stared into the pit of darkness that the stairs descended to. “You sure?”

“One hundred percent. You do want to go dancing, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“Then down the stairs you go!”

I grasped the metal rail with one hand and took a step down the first stair, not so bad. “Okay, no running.” I mumbled already feeling the strain on my calves as my legs, as if they had retained memories from my first trip up the stairs, complaining. Going down the stairs was almost worse than going up the stairs, at least going up at some point I had seen light— but going down? It kept getting darker and darker— not that it was harder to see, I found that my eyesight was much clearer now that Violet’s blood was in my system. We descended for what felt like an hour but was probably only a few minutes. I’d never been more grateful to feel the bottom step give way to the actual ground of the floor. I would have stopped to kiss the hardwood, but Violet was already pushing some invisible knob, the wall in front of us opened, and once again we were in the club.

“Come on,” Violet whispered, as she dragged me out of the hidden compartment, and closed the hidden door behind us, “let’s go find Irene.” Violet left me there, as she strode past me confidently, into the mass of people dancing to an electric beat. I could feel every nerve on fire, begging to be released, begging to be at one with the music. I couldn’t see where Violet had gone, but I made my way into the mass of bobbing bodies anyways— my feet dancing, my body moving, in ways I hadn’t thought possible. I was so thirsty after what felt like only a few minutes, that I made my way over to one of the sides of the club where I noticed that people had been going for drinks. The bartender behind the bar was dressed in white dress shirt, black bow tie and black vest— his eyes were also round black marbles in his skull, ahhhh, a shapeshifting Fae. He watched me approach and put his hand to his ear, as if he was receiving instructions.

“Miss Cassandra,” his voice boomed in my head, “your drinks are on the house, please— take this.”

I reached out, not sure how this Fae was able to use Telepathy, and nodded my thanks. The drink in my hand was clear, with crushed ice and candied cherries. I took a sip, it was warm going down, tasting of cinnamon and something else I couldn’t quite define.

“Ahhhh! There you are!” Irene’s seafoam green dress and pink hair bobbed into my line of vision. “What do you think?”

“I think, I can barely hear you.” I shouted back. “Where’s Violet?”

I got my answer a second later as Violet danced into view, “great! Now we’ve all found each other!” Violet shouted over the music. “It’s getting late, one more dance then we head?”

I felt my disappointment, “Violet, we’ve only been here for-”

“Like five hours.” Irene cut me off. “Violet’s right, we have school tomorrow, and I’m pretty sure, a pop quiz of some kind.”

“FIVE HOURS?”

Violet nodded, and we locked eyes, I knew without her speaking in my mind what she was communicating, it was an ‘I told you so’ about the high of vampire blood in one’s system. Yeah, it had felt like a few minutes, but it had been hours.

“One more dance!” I hollered back. I put my empty glass on the bar, and the three of us headed back into the bobbing mass of people. I enjoyed the feeling— feeling alive and not caring about pain or the future— all that existed in this moment was right now, and right now? I was young, happy, not encumbered by impending doom or being forced to the back of someone’s subconscious— or even the lover of the devil… I was just me, and that was enough. When the song ended and another began, the three of us maneuvered our way out of the crowd and back through the club until we exited the doors that led to outside. I’d never been more grateful for cool air and gasped it in gratefully.

Irene was already down the ramp, Violet not far behind her. Tom was still letting people in, as we left, he let in three more people, glancing at me only momentarily before his attention diverted back to the line of people in front of him. It was what I saw there in that moment that worried me— anger, resentment and something else, fear? I didn’t get to ponder it that much though because I could hear Violet and Irene calling my name from the street, so I took a deep breath and jogged after them.

A limo was waiting at the curb, Violet and Irene were already in the limo when I reached them— both laughing and giggling about something frivolous— and I let myself join in, even though I knew in the back of my head, I needed to come down— I needed to be serious and make sure my plan was going to work, that everything was set in motion. The limo pulled away from the curb, smoothly taking us away from the club and back into town.

“Cass, we’ll drop you off first.” Violet giggled, “here, let me put my number in your phone, so we can plan more girls’ nights.” I knew what she meant, I pulled my phone out from the purse I had completely forgotten in the limo earlier and handed it to Violet. “This was really fun!” Violet added her number to my phone and handed it back.

“Yeah, it was!” Irene squealed, “I guess you were right, Vi— telling Cass about us was totally okay.”

Violet and I stared at each other, and I realized we had completely forgotten that Irene was part of the equation. “Hey Irene?” I mumbled. “I don’t want to get you or Vi in trouble, so yeah, I’m cool— but we probably shouldn’t tell anyone what or that— I know.”

“Oh, right.” Irene winked, “gotcha. Not a problem friendo.”

The limo pulled up to Cassandra Pirot’s place and slowed to a stop. “Um Irene?” Violet turned to look at Irene, “I’m going to make sure that Cass makes it up the stairs, be right back.”

Violet and I slid out of the limo, with Violet firmly closing the door behind us. We started walking up the stairs. “Look Violet, I-”

“You’re welcome.” She sighed as we reached the top step, and I put my key into the door. “I guess I won’t be seeing you until the next time we ‘hang out.’”

I shook my head, “I promised Cassandra that I only needed a few days to iron out the plan to keep her alive.”

“So tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow when you see me in class, you’ll be seeing Cassandra.”

Violet bit her lip and pulled me into a hug, “Well, I guess this is goodbye until the next time then, auntie.”

We both laughed. “That’s right, I guess I am your aunt. Life is very strange, isn’t it?” I turned the knob and opened the door into the house.

“That it is… have you figured out a way to tell Cassandra that your plan is going to keep you alive and not her?”

I shook my head. “I think I’m going to have to leave that one till the time is right.” Mitzi came hurtling down the hall, and I scooped her up before she could make her escape to the world of the outdoors. “Goodnight.” I smiled and stepped into the house.

“Good night.” Violet replied.

I closed the door, and stood in the darkness for a minute, holding the purring cat. “Hell, hath no fury like a cat who’s been ignored. Sorry Mitzi,” I mumbled, as I made my way into the house, and to Cassandra’s room. It felt like years ago since I had been here last, holding up outfits and chatting with Cassandra about letting me have more time to finalize my plan. I sighed, as I turned on the lamp and switched on the fan. I put Mitzi on the bed, but she was soon back on the floor playing with a ball of yarn. “Silly cat.” I slipped out of the green dress, hanging it on the back of the desk chair, and pulled on the pink nightie. I was hit by a wave of exhaustion— was this what it was like to come down off of vampire blood? Yawning I let myself flop backwards onto the bed and closed my eyes. I didn’t even care if I dreamt of hell tonight. I could take Lucifer, or Lucas as he insisted, I called him. Now that I had a plan. Nothing would stand in my way. I smiled, and let sleep take me, tomorrow was a new day.

12 Metamorphosis

I awoke with a crazy headache, my alarm going off, the face flashing six thirty at me. I groaned, I felt like I hadn’t slept in a week. How long had Cassandra been in control this time? I had promised her only a few days to sort out her plan, a plan which she had been rather vague on, only that she had one. A plan that according to her would save me and set all our ancestors free from hell, free to finally be put to rest. Or as Cassandra had put it, ‘free to enter the pearly white gates.’

“Hey hon,” Mariah poked her head into the open door, “you have a good time with your friends?”

Oh crap— who had Cassandra been hanging out with this time? “Oh yeah, so much fun mom. Love me a good girl’s night.” Could she hear the sarcasm in my voice?

“I’m so glad. I know it’s been hard on you not having Melanie around. Violet and Irene seem nice. Why don’t you invite them over for dinner sometime?”

Phewf. “Sure, I’ll ask them when they’re free.” Mom seemed pacified and sent me a winning at me as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and headed off somewhere in the house, humming as she wandered away. Interesting, my mom humming? Usually, only Ray hummed…

I slid out of bed and closed the door. The lamp in the corner of the room was still on, I or Cassandra rather must have forgotten to turn it off. Feeling irritation in my soul that yet again I had no idea how or why things were on or off or left wide open I went to turn the lamp off, and I then went to look at myself in the mirror— no bumps or bruises, no scrapes… I looked like I was all in one piece, but for the headache I had and the feeling like my body had slammed into a wall… I winced as I poked my arm— but it looked perfectly fine. How was it that I was in so much pain, but I looked perfectly healthy?

“Um, Cassandra— you there?” Nothing. Of course, go figure, whenever I wanted to talk to her, she was nowhere to be found… I pulled open the wardrobe closet, and started to rifle through it, pulling out a yellow sundress, and orange cardigan, with as much gusto and purpose as I could muster.

“EWWWW. Absolutely not.”

“Ahah! There you are.”

“Did you need anything other than fashion advice?”

I winced, Cassandra giving me fashion advice. “Um, that won’t ever be happening, since you like to run around naked, and”

“Hey. I might have gotten used to wearing SOME things these days. A girl can change you know.”

There was something in her voice, something that made me realize that Cassandra wasn’t as young or naive sounding anymore, she sounded more mature, as if she was growing up. It worried me— I’d almost rather she stayed the way I’d met her— young, innocent and conniving, at least then— I knew where she stood and where I stood…

“Something bothering you?”

I sighed, “How long Cassandra?”

“How long what?”

“You know what.” I put the yellow dress and orange cardigan back into the closet and pulled out a purple Aline dress— when Cassandra didn’t make a fuss, I ditched my nightie and pulled on the dress. “How long were you in control of my body this time?”

“One day.”

One day? Sure, one day. I ached in ways I had never ached, “No way, Cassandra. Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. I swear, I went to school yesterday, went out with the girls, and now you’re back.”

“No tricks?”

“Nope.”

I shut the wardrobe closet and stared at my reflection. “And your plan?”

“In motion.”

“Good,” I whispered. “Very good.”

“Don’t get me wrong, we still have a long way to go, but it’s in motion, and I am highly confident that it’s going to work… but-”

“Ahaha! I knew there was going to be a ‘but-’” I turned off the fan and went to spread my bed. “What is the ‘but’ Cassandra?”

“I need a few nights a week to hang with the girls. They’re essential to our plan, the one to keep you alive… and you can’t ask questions…. and you’ll need to just agree with things they say from here on out.”

I grit my teeth. “I don’t like it.”

“Tell you what, I’ll even deal with Lucas, you just have to get us through school.”

I liked that even less. “And Mel?”

“You can talk to Mel all you want.”

“Sheesh, you just want control of the rest of my life, no big.”

“Please?”

I picked up a green dress with gold straps from the back of the desk chair— it reminded me of a dress I might have seen, albeit in white, on some Greek woman or statue. “Was I wearing this?” I don’t know if I was more mortified or impressed.

“At some point, you’re just going to have to trust me.”

As if. But it wasn’t really like I had a choice— she was the one with the plan, and I was the one in the predicament… I dropped the green dress back onto the chair. “I have to get to school.” I picked up the gray purse from where Cassandra had dropped it, double checked that my stuff was still inside it and slung it over my shoulder.

“Cass, please?”

There was a begging in her tone, and it cut me. She hadn’t really even lived— even though she said she had— her life had been cut off at the same age I was now— she hadn’t traveled, hadn’t gotten to know who she was or what she was capable of. I felt a giant wave of empathy for my original ancestor. I sighed, “Sure. Do what you need to.” Cassandra’s presence faded to the background again, but not before I felt her extreme pleasure. I rolled my eyes, as there was a knock on my door.

“Breakfast before school?” Ray’s voice floated to me.

“Coming!” I hollered back, and looking at myself one more time in the mirror, I left it and my room behind and headed into the kitchen, where the smell of coffee called to me, maybe that would help with my headache.

Ray and mom were both in the kitchen, which wasn’t something I was used to— except for once a week, when we had family dinners, it was often just mom and I if Ray was working late— or just Ray and I in the morning after mom had headed into the office early. They were both humming a similar tune and making breakfast together. Ray was making his standard usual pancakes, and mom was making scrambled eggs and bacon. It smelled like heaven with the essence of coffee thrown in the background. I dropped my purse on the counter, and they both looked up and grinned at me— it was a little creepy.

“Morning, hon.” Ray pushed his glasses further onto his nose, which was a classic Ray move.

“Did I miss a family memo?” I pulled out one of the bar stools and sat down, leaning both my elbows onto the table, and snatching a piece of bacon off the plate where mom had already put some on paper towels to dry off some of the grease. I glanced up at Ray and mom, to see if either one of them would get mad at me for snatching the bacon, but neither seemed to notice, mom seemed miles away, in her own little world. “Seriously what’s going on?”

“Honey,” mom began and put a mug of coffee in front of me.

“Okay, now I’m actually weirded out. Mom, you never let me have coffee. Ray?”

Ray flipped a pancake off the pan and onto the stack he always liked creating, then he pulled my mom into a side hug, and grinned at me through his thick glasses. “Cass, you mom and I have something to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Remember I told you we were going to a celebration last night for hooking that big client?”

Did I remember? Absolutely not— that was when Cassandra had control of my body, dang— this was what she meant about saying yes to things and agreeing with people… living a double life didn’t really agree with me… much too complicated. “Yeah, sure. So?”

“Well, we were at the dinner, and-”

“And I started feeling really unwell. I mean I haven’t been feeling very well for months— I thought-” mom paused, “I thought it was to do with something else, but I was wrong…”

Wait— did she think it had something to do with our past? Was she finally going to admit that-

“I’m pregnant!” Mom pulled a pregnancy test out from a box she’d somehow hidden beside the stack of bacon and waved the plus sign in my face.

“You’re going to be a big sister!”

If I hadn’t been sitting down, I probably would have fallen over. “Wha-, I mean congratulations!”

“Look Cass, I know this is probably just as much a shock for you as it is for us, but I hope you can eventually be excited.” Mom came around the island and gave me a big hug. “You’ll always be my number one bug.”

“And my number one too.” Ray added, grinning at us both from across the island.

“I just don’t know what to say! It’s not that I’m not pumped for you guys it’s just-” a massive surprise… “I’m happy for you.” I made sure to return my mom’s hug, “really, I am!” I tossed a smile at Ray, “wow— almost a seventeen year age gap. That’s-”

“Crazy? I know.” Mom released me and held me at arms length, grinning. “I never thought I’d want or need more than one, but I’m so grateful to be carrying another child.”

Suddenly my blood ran cold. Another child? “I really hope it’s a brother!” I tried to say with as much enthusiasm as I could, otherwise another generation of women would be haunted and cursed by Lucas— and my attempt to stop him from hurting my family by my plan with Cassandra wouldn’t work.

“Aww babe, that’s so cute!” Mom squeezed my arm. “Come on, let’s eat breakfast, you want to grab plates, I’ll grab the utensils?”

I nodded, and grabbed the plates and put them out around the small table in our kitchen, mom followed me with the utensils and cups, as Ray brought over the food. It always felt awkward sitting here at this table, mainly because we almost never sat here. Mom or Ray usually used this table for their laptops as they worked from home, if they didn’t feel like using the office upstairs in the loft, or I would use it when I was studying, if I wanted a change of view from my bedroom desk… but eating here as a family? Mom brought over some orange juice and we all sat down.

Ray cleared his throat, “I’d like to give thanks.” He reached out and took my hand and my mom’s hand and gave them both a squeeze, then he lowered his head to pray.

I’d never known Ray or my mother to be even remotely religious, so this was a new experience for me. I closed my eyes and lowered my head, mostly because I didn’t want anyone to know how awkward I already felt.

“Thank you God, for this food, my family, and this amazing day. We lift up our grateful hearts for this blessing, an additional little Pirot to this family, and we ask for your protection over this little life— keep them safe and bring them into this world healthy and strong. And thank you for these two women who are here to guide and love not just me, but this little human who I can’t wait to meet. Amen.” Ray gave our hands one more squeeze then released them, “Alright ladies, let’s dig in!”

‘Dig in’ was an understatement— I had never seen my mother eat so much, compliment the cooking— yes, even her own, so much or down orange juice like there was no tomorrow. I could only manage to eat a little of everything while not trying to feel like I was going to barf. Whatever Cassandra had fed me yesterday was NOT agreeing with my stomach. I drank three glasses of coffee, which only slightly helped my headache, and then I checked my phone— it was high past time that I liked to leave myself in order to get to school on time.

“Sorry mom, Ray— I have to get to school. I’ll see you both when I get home.” I pushed up off the chair and gave mom a hug, kissing the top of her head, and nodded at Ray.

“Of course sweetie.” Mom looked up at me before I had a chance to run away, “and how is your boyfriend? We haven’t seen too much of him or heard you talk about him in a while.”

Well, if that wasn’t the understatement of the year, I didn’t know what was. “He’s okay.” I lied. “We’re taking things slow.” Correction: I was trying to keep him at bay— but it was weird, I hadn’t had any dreams lately, or even seen him… which might be bad— he might be planning something, I’d have to ask Cassandra later.

“Good.” Mom cast Ray a warning glance, “slow is good.”

I felt a wave of nausea. “Yeah, I have to get to school. Bye.” I scooped up the gray purse and headed out of the house. It was seven thirty, homeroom was at eight— and it was a half an hour walk. I sighed, and made myself walk in the direction of the school even though my whole body was aching and the sun was making my headache worse. Several times I contemplated talking to Cassandra and asking her what was up, but then there were so many people around I didn’t want to look like a crazy person… Instead I pulled out my phone, and stared at Mel’s number. I doubted she was going to talk to me, but maybe she’d respond to my text. I typed, ‘guess what, my mom and Ray are having a baby!’ And hit send. Who knows, maybe, if I was lucky, Mels wasn’t still angry enough with me still to not reply to such crazy news. I put my phone away, and tried to think about something, anything else. I stared at storefronts as they opened for business or were getting ready to open for customers— so much of life is spent scurrying about from one thing to the next that people don’t really even stop to appreciate the beauty of the world around them, at least that’s what Cassandra would say.

A horn honked startling me, I jumped, then heard a familiar voice, “Morning Cass!” I turned around, there was Violet.

“Good morning, Violet!”

“Running late this morning?” I nodded, “Well, hop in, me too! We were up so late last night.” Again I nodded. “Thanks for being such a trooper and sticking it out!”

“It was a great time.” I mumbled back as I slid into the car.

“How are you feeling today?” Violet queried. “You don’t look so hot— you sure you want to come to class? Like I mean I know we have a pop quiz but-”

“Probably just a hangover, right?”

“Right.” Violet looked at me sideways. “Want some sunglasses?” I nodded again and Violet pulled some shades out from her glove compartment and handed them to me. “Anything else you noticed?”

“Food tastes off.”

“Hmmm… Yeah, I’ve heard that can happen, must still be-”

“What?”

“Oh nothing. Are you ready for the pop quiz? It will probably be on Enoch.”

Enoch? Who was he again? I closed my eyes to remember if I had read up on him, and I felt like I was spinning. I opened my eyes and stared out the window. “Enoch, yeah— the guy who never died, right?”

“That’s right.” Violet scanned her gate pass and the gate creaked open. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

I sighed as Violet pulled her car up the drive and into the parking lot. “Yeah, I mean my mom and Ray dropped some news on me at breakfast… but-” I bit my lip, no reason to drop my family drama on Violet. “I think I’ll be okay. I just feel weird, like different you know. Must be something I ate yesterday-”

“Or drank.” Violet threw in as she opened her door and got out of the car.

“Yeah, I guess.” I followed Violet into the school, we walked along quietly, Violet seeming miles away, deep in thought, but about what— I couldn’t tell you. Cassandra had said Irene and Violet were important parts of her plan to save my life, but I couldn’t see how. The hallways were just as dark as usual, but my eyes could make out more detail then they had ever been able to before in the dim light. I tried to shrug it off, especially when I realized I was still wearing the sunglasses. I pulled them off, “your shades… thanks.”

Violet smiled at me, “No problem, why don’t you keep them for later, seeing as you didn’t bring any and it’s going to probably still be sunny when we leave.”

I knew Violet was right, our summer days had come to an end, but it was still warm and sunny for autumn, with only a hint of chill in the air. This was usually my favorite season, when the leaves changed and pumpkin everything returned to every coffee shop under the sun— but this year had a sense of dread and finality to it. We turned the last corner and almost ran into our short professor, Mr. Flimheart, who was just in front of us making his way to the class with a giant briefcase.

“Would you like some assistance, professor?” Violet gently tapped Flimheart on the shoulder.

“Ahhh, Violet, thank you, but no— I am quite alright, I just have extra texts in my bag today, and am running a little behind on my own schedule.”

“Pop quiz today?” I asked nervously.

“Pop quiz? Hmmm, yes— I was going to do that, but something else came up, besides, Miss Pirot, if we did indeed have a pop quiz, I am sure you would have aced it.”

Well, that was kind of him. “Thank you sir.”

“Not at all, not at all.”

We headed into the classroom, where students were mingling already, chattering, and completely ignoring Violet, Flimheart and myself.

“No, I thought instead we would take a look at something entirely different today” Flimheart hoisted his briefcase onto the lab desk and turned his marble eyes to stare at Violet and I, “and talk about metamorphosis.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, well, why don’t you two take your seats and our class will begin.”

Violet and I scrambled to our seats, Irene waving us over, and looking at Flimheart very suspiciously. “What was that about?” She whispered. Violet and I both shrugged as Flimheart began his first monotone lecture of the day.

“Good morning class. I know I promised many of you that we were going to be having a pop quiz today, however, I have changed my mind. Cassandra and Violet, would you please help pass out these books?”

Flimheart almost never asked for my help in class, he was always asking Violet or Irene or anyone else, other than myself to help when something came up, so I was a little shocked. Violet gave me a little nudge and I followed her to where Flimheart had been stacking the books he had pulled out of his briefcase. I took half the stack and Violet took the other half and we began to distribute the books. There was a picture of a butterfly on the front, but no text that I could see. Taking the last book for myself, I returned to my seat, and flipped through the book, again a lot of pictures but almost no text. I could tell that I wasn’t the only one with questions, the nearly almost always silent classroom was abuzz with quiet murmurs and mumbles.

“Yes, I am sure that you all have questions.” Flimheart turned and wrote on the whiteboard in giant letters, ‘Metamorphosis.’ “Metamorphosis, what is it you may ask— or if you are a keener and like to read the dictionary you might already know.” Flimheart turned and glared at me. “According to the Oxford dictionary, Metamorphosis is defined as the following; the process of transformation from an immature form to an adult form in two or more distinct stages.” He paused, “This obviously could refer to many things. We could discuss it within the confines of humanity, the stages of life— from birth, childhood to adolescence to adulthood. This is a metamorphosis of which you are all a part. But there is another definition; a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, but natural or supernatural forces.” Flimheart stopped speaking and cleared his throat. “There are some things, my pupils, which are exhibits of this kind of metamorphosis-” Flimheart’s voice dropped in volume, “and we know that these exhibits are technically forbidden.”

Violet squirmed beside me, I don’t know what made her so uncomfortable, but something did.

“The supernatural is powerful, and it answers to no one, changing a ‘thing’ from the inside out to something completely different. This metamorphosis often leaves very little indicators on the outside that the ‘thing’ is changed, oh— there will be telltale signs, little things almost indistinguishable by eye, but felt deeply.”

I leaned in, what was Flimheart on about?

“Next week Acroft opens for regular classes. The school will be a wash with fresh students who are experiencing their own metamorphosis— their very first year here at Acroft, and students who, like yourselves are about to experience a different kind of metamorphosis as you get ready to graduate and leave the world of Acroft behind you. These are the big questions, the big changes who define who you are and who you are becoming. I expect all of you to show a big Acroft welcome to your newest members. Now… please open your texts to page fifteen. You will have thirty minutes to study and discuss with your desk partners pages fifteen to thirty, before we have a quiz on these insects and amphibians who experience metamorphosis. I have a meeting. Please excuse me.” Flimheart turned and made his way out of the classroom, where he met up with a man with blonde hair, who I caught staring at me before he and Flimheart disappeared from view, but not before I saw him point a finger at me, and ask Flimheart something.

“What’s going on Violet?” I whispered, as I opened my textbook to page fifteen, where a picture of a tadpole with drawings of how it slowly turned into a frog stared up at me. Violet shrugged, but I could tell something had shaken her. “Who was that talking to Flimheart?”

“Him?” Violet cast a look over her shoulder, “that was Pierre.”

“And who is he?”

“Pierre works for the Steinhearts.”

I would have asked more, but I was being shushed by some of the students behind me. I turned around to tell them to shove it, when I realized Topher was missing. “Vi-”

Violet pinched my arm and nodded at the desk, I looked down— she had written me a note. ‘Second day he has missed classes. Something’s up.’

‘What?’ I scribbled back.

‘Not sure, but nothing good.’ Violet hastily wrote, as Flimheart reentered the room.

“Class I thought I told you to discuss. Please, discuss the drawings and images, you now have twenty five minutes until your pop quiz.” The classroom sprung to life, as students began to share their opinions with their desk mates. Seeming satisfied, Flimheart again left the room.

Violet avoided my attempts to get her attention, or at least draw her attention away from discussing what was on the pages in front of us. I was beyond frustrated, not just because of my headache or aches and pains, but the fact that I had agreed with Cassandra to keep secrets from one another— that and the anxiety about my mom and Ray and their ‘little’ announcement.

“You see here on page fifteen,” Violet pointed at the page, clearly taking the leadership role in our group discussion, as Irene and I leaned in to stare at the amphibian in it’s metamorphosis into a frog, from tadpole onward, “That this frog began as an egg, then-”

“This is BORING.” Irene rolled her eyes. “Come on, there has to be something more interesting in this book— and WHY is Flimheart teaching us about frogs?”

“Irene, please! Listen, and for goodness’s sake, only add something worth adding to this conversation!”

Irene sighed, and snatched the book from Violet, flipping through the book, as Violet tried to snatch it back. “There has to be something interesting in here, and— OH!” Irene tossed the book, and it landed on Violet’s lap.

“Oh.” Violet whispered, her face going paler than normal. I leaned in, what could make Violet scared, or worried? There on the page was a picture of a person, with all their circulatory system and veins and heart drawn, with a picture of-

“Are those teeth?”

“Shhhh…” Violet closed the book. “Flimheart should never have brought this book here!”

“What could he be thinking?” Hissed Irene, glancing nervously over her shoulder.

“If Dean Melrose found out?” Violet and Irene locked eyes for a moment, both looking really uncomfortable.

“Guys, what is it?”

“What it is,” Violet pulled me in close and whispered in my ear, “it’s a diagram of how a human is turned into a vampire.”

I wanted to tell Violet that she was crazy— but I knew what I’d seen on the page I’d accidentally flipped to. I glanced over at Irene, who was nodding. “And he just— put them, these books, in the hands of his students?” Suddenly I had a sick feeling. I knew what kind of metamorphosis Flimheart had been referring to that was ‘illegal.’ “And is it legal for someone to turn a human into a vampire?”

Irene shook her head, “technically? You’d probably get away with it, if you were careful, but the council outlawed it. It’s one of the reasons there are so few of us left.”

“Yes, the council turns a blind eye to that— but this?” Violet grabbed all three books from our desk and walked up to Flimheart’s podium, stepping behind the long teaching desk. “Alright class, Irene and Cassandra will be collecting your books— please pass them to the end of your row for collection.”

A few hands shot up all around the classroom, as I could almost hear the students’ silent complaint that it hadn’t been twenty minutes yet.

“I know it’s a few minutes early,” Violet continued, “but honestly, if you can’t describe the metamorphosis of an amphibian, butterfly, or beaver by now, then you aren’t really smart enough to be in this class.”

I could already hear books being passed to the end of rows of desks. I nodded at Violet and then with Irene, I began to collect the books which Violet put immediately into Flimheart’s black suitcase and closed with a loud bang, before ensuring that the locks were clasped. Violet returned to her seat in between Irene and I, and the room soon was awash in quiet murmurs.

“Let’s hope,” Violet hissed once more people were talking, “that no one else saw what we saw.”

Flimheart soon returned, with a stack of papers that he distributed to the class, our ‘pop quiz.’ I turned over the paper, and scanned the quiz— it was actually really simple, a thirty question multiple choice, on exactly what had been on pages fifteen through thirty. I glanced up at Flimheart, he was scowling, reading something he had pulled out of a large manila envelope, he looked up and for a brief second we locked eyes, if you could call staring into two marbles locking eyes… I couldn’t read an emotion there, in his blank marble eyes, but I could tell from his body posture and the scowl on his face that he was frustrated and displeased with whatever he was reading. I quickly filled out the multiple choice quiz, knowing that I was going to ace this stupid thing, and wondered if I should write down what I had seen in the pages we weren’t supposed to read— for extra credit. I sighed, almost sure that it had been Flimheart’s personal agenda to make sure at least one person had read or seen the picture of the human being transitioned into a vampire.

“Bored Cassandra?” Flimheart’s voice cut through the silence of shuffling papers and pencils filling in multiple choice bubbles.

I shook my head, and flipped my quiz over, indicating I was finished.

“Thought not.” Flimheart mumbled and went back to reading his papers. “If you haven’t finished your tests in the next minute, there is no hope of guessing the answers. Please hand your tests down to the end of your row and I will come collect them. We will have our ten minute break early today.” Flimheart stood, putting the stack of papers he had been reading back into the manila envelope, then stuffing the envelope into his briefcase on top of the stack of books making sure the lock clicked into place. No one moved as Flimheart walked down the side of the classroom and collected the quizzes, but as soon as he had reached the back of the room, and had all the quizzes in hand, the room sprung to life students filing out quickly, as if they couldn’t wait to leave, even Violet and Irene fled— within seconds I was the only student still in the classroom. “Ahhh, Cassandra, our little enigma.” Flimheart frowned, as he shuffled back to his desk, and looked down on me from his teaching pulpit. “I hope you found something interesting in the texts this morning, other than of course, the simple things which I am sure you already knew.”

So, it had been Flimheart’s goal for-

“Yes, it was for your benefit.” Flimheart cleared his throat, “you have attracted all kinds of interest Cassandra— be careful. What I showed you is a warning of things to come.”

Things to come? “Sorry, professor, I’m not sure I understand.” I tried to laugh, but it came out not the way I wanted to. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to— maybe some prophet or seer is it?”

“Yes, yes I have, more like reading prophecies, and talking to key players. You are much more than you seem.”

“But I’m just Cassandra, and I’m nothing, if a boring, albeit very studious, human.” I argued back, hoping to avoid conversations about fallen angels and having death babies. I squirmed, suddenly understanding why Violet and Irene had scrammed as soon as they were able.

“No.” Flimheart blinked. “You are not,” Flimheart coughed, which looked very strange because of his unblinking marble-like eyes. “Today you are excused from classes. Go report to Dean Melrose office, where you have been requested by a prominent guest, and remember Miss Pirot, caution. You are on a path that slides into oblivion.”

I shivered, something about his words. And what prophecy? I was just a normal girl with a cursed family, but a human girl.

“Go.” Flimheart said again but this time more sternly.

I stood very shakily, and turned tail, practically jogging, if not sprinting down the hallway and out the building, gasping for air as if I was drowning. I stood in the Autumn sun for a moment, it was still warm but already I could sense a chill in the air— as the seasons were on the brink of change. I looked around, what would it be like next week when as Flimheart said, all the rest of the students returned to Acroft? Feeling the creepy feelings leave me as I stood in the sun, I took a deep breath, I was a Pirot woman, and we were strong, independent and— and Dean Melrose was probably waiting for me in his office. I forced my legs to move, one step at a time before I ran away and chickened out. I walked into the new school building, it was so quiet here, the only thing I could hear was my own breathing. I hadn’t been back to Dean Melrose office since Ray and I had been here for my interview to get into Acroft, and my memory of that day, and of that young doctor with red hair was still pretty burnt into my brain. I peeked into open classrooms and tried to picture them full of students, but all I could see was Gusto’s diner filled with monster-like people.

I shook myself, “come on Cass. You’ve dealt with much worse things in the past, besides, we make our own futures.” At least I was going to try. I turned into the office, and almost jumped when I realized a short squat woman was seated behind the secretary’s desk. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was here!”

The woman looked up from the desk, her brown eyes looked me up and down from head to toe, and she tucked a piece of blonde hair behind her ear, as she smirked. “Ah, the infamous Cassandra. Welcome, Dean Melrose is waiting for you.”

Infamous? I wasn’t infamous.

“This way,” she gestured, buzzing open the door that led into the back offices.

“Thanks, I mumbled, and went through the door, which seemed to slam shut behind me. The dark hallway wasn’t as quiet as it had been the last time, lights shone out off open offices, and I could hear voices within several as I walked by, peering in as much as I could, trying to get a peek of any of the professors, or staff I could. I wasn’t as lucky as I’d hoped, only really catching a glance of Doctor Gristman talking to someone who’s back was to me— but I knew she’d spotted me because she walked over to the door and slammed it as I passed by. It felt like the hallway was longer than before, like it had taken me ages to walk down it, but I knew my mind was playing tricks on me, that I’d probably only taken at least fifty steps from the start of the hallway till I was standing at Dean Melrose office door. I raised my hand to knock, but the door swung open before I’d even managed an attempt at knocking.

“Cassandra!” Dean Melrose’s voice boomed in the empty hall, “come in, come in. We’ve been waiting for you.”

I stepped into the office, the Dean closing it behind me. I nervously glanced around the room, wondering who the ‘we’ was that Dean Melrose had been referring to, but I didn’t see anyone.

“Sorry for dilly dallying.” I murmured, as I continued to scan the room.

“Not a problem, not a problem at all my dear.” Dean Melrose walked over to his desk and took a seat, motioning that I should join him. I uneasily walked further into the office and took a seat across from him in one of the chairs set out for guests. “Don’t worry, you’re not— well, not in trouble.” The Dean smiled at me, but I could sense he was putting on his best behavior, acting very polite and civil, which he normally was, but this was so so much more. “And how are you finding your classes?”

“Sorry Dean— but I thought you had a guest I was to meet?”

“You are such a direct young lady.” Melrose chuckled. “Alright, enough of the formalities. Uhm.” Melrose’s smiling face turned quite serious, “Cassandra, how old are you?”

I stared at Melrose, was he serious? He knew how old I was.

“Please, Cassandra, just answer the question.”

“I’m almost seventeen.”

“You’re certain, you aren’t older?”

“I would know.” I choked out.

“Then how is it-” A voice I didn’t recognize came from somewhere in the room, “that your aura is saying you are thousands of years old?”

So, there was someone else here, but where? Again I looked around, but I saw nothing and no one else in the room.

“I’m not! And if you believe in auras-”

“Don’t lie to me Cassandra. I was there, I know you.”

Something in me flickered to life, begging to be released, again I felt nauseous, my head pounding. At first I wasn’t quite sure what was screaming at me until I realized that it was Cassandra. Not now, this was bad. “Perhaps you just think I look familiar because I am the spitting image of my original ancestor, Cassandra, I even have her namesake. BUT, I promise you— I am a human girl, a sixteen year old, human girl. Nothing more.”

“There, see, Pierre? What did I tell you? You’re wrong.” Melrose relaxed in his chair a little, loosening his tie, and letting out a sigh.

Pierre? The man who had been talking to Flimheart?

“Careful.” Cassandra whispered in the back of my mind.

I wanted to ask her who Pierre was, but I didn’t have the patience to try to communicate with her via my thoughts right now.

“Ahhhh, there you are.” Pierre’s voice came out so softly I could have sworn it was the wind speaking, but even as the words slid from his lips, Pierre stepped out from behind Melrose’ large armchair he had been lounging in behind his desk. I almost jumped, Melrose and Pierre could have been brothers, they were very similar in height and their features were almost an exact match. His brown eyes stared into mine, but not at me, almost as if he could see Cassandra’s soul hidden within my own, and I realized after a moment that was what he was doing. “Come out, come out wherever you are.” Pierre sang in a menacing way.

“Cass, I have to talk to him.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“No.”

“No.” Pierre said at the exact same time as Cassandra.

I sighed, “one second.” I released control back to Cassandra, but stayed close to the surface as she again took control of my body. Pierre might want to talk to Cassandra, but I wanted to know what they talked about.

“Hello Cassandra, daughter of Eve.”

I heard Melrose gasp from where he sat, clearly having had no idea that I’d had Cassandra’s consciousness in my mind this whole time. He straightened in his chair, and clenched the edge of his desk as if it were a lifeline.

“Pierre,” Cassandra hissed, “what does the servant of Silvaneous Steinheart want this time?”

“I am no one’s servant.” I watched Pierre take a menacing step towards Cassandra, as if I was watching TV, not as if it was happening to me, I’d noticed that lately, that whenever Cassandra took control of me she was getting stronger, had more ability to shut me out or push me away— it made me afraid she was thinking about keeping my body and allowing my soul to die instead of hers, but at least the headache was gone and I didn’t feel nauseous at all.

“Brother.” Melrose grabbed Pierre’s arm, “please, this situation-”

“No longer requires your attention.” Pierre cast a glance at Melrose as if he were just another annoyance. “Leave. Don’t you have classes to prepare for?”

Melrose withdrew his hand as if Pierre had bitten it, “Remember to whom you speak, mixed blood.” Melrose hissed, “I-”

“You what? You’re lucky you have such Pure blood? Is that it?”

Clearly the brothers had some kind of issue, but not even Cassandra seemed to want to figure it out, “SILENCE!” Cassandra shouted, and both Pierre and Melrose shut up, fast. I was amazed at her confidence, a human shouting at vampires. “Pierre, you clearly wanted to talk, so talk. What are you even doing here?”

“I am here on the behalf of my patron, Marcus Steinheart.” Pierre paused and raised an eyebrow as he took Cassandra in, watching for something…. hadn’t Cassandra mentioned a man named Marcus to me at some point? Maybe I was going crazy— but no, I felt her bristle, even though I was just a consciousness in my own body. “Yes, on the behalf of Marcus Steinheart. His two eldest are to begin school here next fall.”

“Again,” Cassandra flipped some hair over her shoulder, “why did you want to speak to me?”

“Because I saw you, I had to know— and I had to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

Oh oh, this was bad.

“Warn me about what?”

“To stay away from Marcus, Silvaneous demands it.”

“Oh, he does, does he? And-”

“And it doesn’t matter.” Pierre laughed, “all this time, I knew you were a-”

“LANGUAGE!” Melrose howled, “this is still a school.”

“Fine. It doesn’t matter, that’s why.” Pierre grabbed Cassandra’s arm, and poked the spot where Lucas’ mark had burnt my skin. “You don’t have much time do you?”

Cassandra ripped her arm, my arm away from Pierre. “That is none of your business.”

“Same old Cassandra, getting involved with the Nephilim scum even after everything— you’d still pick death.” Pierre laughed, but it was a bleak laugh. “After everything that you put Marcus through…”

Cassandra launched at Pierre screaming bloody murder, but it didn’t seem to do anything to him. He laughed, and pushed her away, I felt myself falling, and suddenly I was floating in darkness. Cassandra had pushed me out— into the void. I sighed. Hopefully Cassandra would catch me up, not that she was much for sharing.

---

I felt Cass’ presence fall away from me as I pushed her into the recesses of her own mind. Cass couldn’t know about Marcus, she couldn’t know what Silvaneous or Pierre had done— that was my pain and my secret. I screamed and launched myself at Pierre, but he threw my very human form backwards, and I would have hit the ground if Melrose hadn’t caught me.

“Enough!” Melrose panted pulling my body up into a standing position as I leaned against his cold suit clad form. “Get out of my school, and don’t come back.”

Pierre growled, but didn’t argue, he cast one more menacing look over his shoulder, opened the office door and strode from the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

“I am so sorry,” Melrose walked me to a chair and sat me down, “if I had known he meant to attack you or the emotions he would bring up I would never-”

“It’s okay.” It was anything but okay. He had threatened me, called me a whore, without calling me a whore and then had proceeded to imply that I had a death wish, that I would always choose death over life. “I’m sorry Dean, but is it true? You and Pierre, are brothers? How?”

“Oh, that.” Melrose sighed, and sat on the chair opposite me, “It’s a long story. Pierre’s father married a vampire back in the day, but he was taken out of this world before my mother had any of us— his father is human. But those born from original human and vampire couplings were born Pureblood, I didn’t find Pierre until, well— I can’t remember how many hundreds of years ago— when he was brought back and turned in France… but I digress. You would do well to heed his warning.”

“So Silvaneous still walks the earth?”

Melrose looked uncomfortable, “He calls himself Silvaneous, yes, and it is him— but to those who are naive he has convinced them that he is a mere three hundred years old-”

“And that was what I sensed, something has gone wrong with time.” It was worse than I had imagined. “What did he say happened to his ancestors?”

“Dead. In the war.”

“All lies?”

“From what I know. But— Cassandra, not very many have this knowledge… and it is dangerous. I have seen many supernatural beings die just knowing he is alive… the war, he time locked-”

“Yes, I see.” I stood, I was glad I had sent Cass deep into the recesses of her consciousness, this way she wouldn’t, couldn’t know or get us killed. “Time locked. How? That would require great penance, or sacrifice or-”

“Magic? Ha. I have tried to suss it out since I was young. It isn’t magic. It is older than magic.”

My head snapped up, “older than magic? You don’t mean…”

“He made a deal with the angels. I don’t know, they all went back into heaven or their locked locations to prepare for Armageddon.”

I shivered. “But this is just a whisper?”

“Cassandra, why are you here? Why now? Who called you to this girl’s consciousness?”

I wanted to tell him it was Lucifer, but he already knew too much. “That, friend, is a secret I will take to my grave.” Melrose looked disappointed, as he should, but that was all he was getting from me. “I have a plan, but in order for it to unfold I must die.”

Melrose stood, “die? So, you really plan on allowing whichever Nephilim marked you to impregnate you? Cassandra— you are-”

“Not really going to die. Just be reborn.” Good, Cass had brought her gray purse with her. I popped it open, and found Mark’s number, but quickly thought better of it. “What do you know about Topher Farrelli?”

“Oh please, tell me he isn’t the one.”

“He is not.” I was glad my sons hadn’t taken a human life or was it mate they called it these days… “But I need to get a hold of him.”

“Why?”

“Trust me, it’s better if I don’t tell you. Can you tell him to meet me outside Gustos?”

“If I must.” I tossed Melrose a withering look, and he walked over to his desk and pulled out a phone book from the top desk drawer. “Farrelli, Tohper… let’s see.” Melrose pulled a small silver flip phone from his pocket and dialed, “Ah, Christopher. Pleasure to hear your disgruntled voice as always. I have one Cassandra Pirot here requesting you to meet her at Gustos in-” I held up both hands, “ten minutes… good? Excellent, I’ll tell her.” Melrose hung up the phone. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Oh, I did. “Yes, I do.”

“And will you tell him who you are?”

“No. He can’t know, not yet.”

“And your plan?”

I felt the vampire blood in my veins, quickening, bonding with my original blood. “Oh, isn’t it obvious? I’m the beautiful butterfly setting a trap.” It was time to change things up, set some rules in my favor. I was emerging from my cocoon.

13 Rules of the Game

I paced in front of this so-called diner, Gustos. This area of town was sketchy, but I had chosen this meeting place for a reason. Cass had been thinking about it one day when she was dreaming, a man, but not a man— a prophet, is what she had called him. I had known exactly what Cass spoke about, a seer. I peered down the covered walkway looking for him. The way that Cass had described this man was more of a thing than human as if he were part of the ground, not fully human, but not fully a thing either. To her he might have been difficult to see to a human eye not trained to look past the mundane to the supernatural, but I saw him at once, on his knees praying, wearing the burlap garb that had become associated with those who were devout, those who were set apart for God’s work. I looked around, it wasn’t always good luck to be noticed talking to a seer— it either meant you had a problem you couldn’t fix and needed supernatural, spiritual advice or you had been caught by them as you passed by and given unwanted and unwarranted advice.

“Ahhh, daughter of Eve, hail and peace be to you.” The old man’s voice cut through the stale air, making crisp sounds as he enunciated, like the crisp sounds of something snapping or breaking. I shuddered, I should run the other way, but both Pierre and Melrose had both spoken about a prophecy, and I couldn’t just ignore it. If it was more than a coincidence that my last descendant had asked for me to be the one to return to guide her, while unwittingly being used by my evil husband to do it, then I needed to know. What exactly was my role in all of this anyways? And to what end?

“Greetings of peace, oh wise one, teller of truth, speaker of doom— anointed one.” I bowed low in a show of respect, hoping to not attract too much attention by doing so.

The seer stood from his stooped posture and met my eyes with his own blank stare. That was the other creepy thing I’d always found about seers— one of the things that marks them? Their blindness, blindness turned inward to open the unknown. I bit my lip to stop from screaming as the old one took my hand in his weatherly grip. “You who are doomed to die, to live— you have come with many questions, but I will only answer one.”

I almost yanked my arm away, dying to shout so many things, like ‘one, really?’ And variations of that question, but I had to be wise, when the seer said one, he usually meant only one. I took a deep breath, okay, so what one question? “Where are the prophecies about me kept?”

“Ahh, therein is the key— you have chosen well, daughter of Eve.” The seer pulled me close, his hot breath and thick beard scratching and offending my face with their closeness and decaying odors. “You must go to the place that of it is said, ‘the eye of the needle’,”

Great. A riddle?

“A place where many kings and emperors have fought, a place where sits power, and many names. Yes, it is the connecting point of what was once considered the whole known world,” his hand released me. “There, you will find the scrolls, hidden in the rocks with other ancient religious texts. Go to the monks in black…” The seer sunk down into his bent over prayer posture, facing the east.

I wanted more, but for now I filed that away in my brain. And how was I supposed to travel anywhere, what with my impending doom? I sighed, it wasn’t useless information, I’d just have to figure it into my rules and regulations that I set down when I met with Lucas. Not that I had a giant list anyways— I again glanced around, no one— good, that was very good, it wouldn’t do to have Christopher see me with a seer, and at last I had some answers to my question, why was I here? I was here because it had been prophesied, which also made me feel ill. So, my family was always supposed to have been killed off slowly by Lucifer? I sighed, and walked away from the seer, and back to where the entrance of this Diner was. A blue mini pulled into the ally, just across the way, and Christopher, my son, bundled out, looking fierce. I sighed, how was it that he had received so much of his father’s good looks, but only his bad traits— impatience, pig headedness… he was a-”

“Cassandra. You wanted to talk, so I’m here. What is it?”

I wondered if he could see in my eyes, the way that Pierre had, if he could guess who I was. “Christopher,” I whispered, “The patron saint for those who are in need of protection.”

I saw him pause, he looked at me again, and blinked a few times. “I’m sorry, but what?”

“Only that you are aptly named.” I sighed, it was clear that Christopher, or Topher as he was going by these days, had been shaped into a weapon of destruction and chaos by his father. “Shame.” I looked away, for fear he would see how this knowledge hurt my heart.

“What do you want, Cassandra?”

“Take me to your father. It’s time we talked.”

“Cassandra-”

“Christopher, please.”

“Very well, follow me.” Topher headed back across the alley, not even stopping to see if I was in fact following him and opened up the passenger door of his mini, “after you.”

I slid into the car, ignoring my heart, screaming to tell him that he was my son— that the anger and bitterness he felt towards women was not going to save him in the end. No, in the end he would become just as evil as Lucifer with his black wings and corrupted heart.

Topher started the car, “is something wrong Cass?” I noticed the way his voice softened just a little, perhaps he was still not beyond saving. The car pulled out of the alley, and Topher turned us onto the main road, taking us back into the city, towards St. Mary’s Cathedral, which I could already see in the distance.

“I have some terms that I would like to lay down for your father.”

“Terms?” Topher turned the car onto a side street— we were very close to St. Mary’s now, a few more turns and we’d be just outside the cemetery.

“Yes.”

Topher put the car in park on the side of the road, “not sure my ‘dad’ is big on giving terms.”

“He’s not called the angel of light for no reason.” I muttered as Topher got out of the car and ran around to open my door.

“Sorry, what’s that?”

I stood, frozen on the spot. I had seen the cemetery in Cass’ dreams, but standing here was another story. I could feel the souls of many of my daughters weeping as they laid buried beneath the ground. “Nothing.” I whispered, forcing myself to dethaw— if I couldn’t pull myself from this spot where I was rooted, then Christopher was going to know something was wrong, and I still didn’t want him to figure out who I was. “Where’s Mark these days?”

“He-” Topher spat, “is struggling with the fact that he has to watch you live out your final days, and that you have to die. So, he’s spending a lot of time with the humans, and vamps who can stand him. He’s out there denying the fact that this is who we are.”

We walked through the grass, entering the sacred ground of the cemetery. “What about you? It doesn’t bother you knowing that I am probably going to die?” I stared at the gravestones as we walked down the long aisle that led right to St Mary’s Cathedral— this was the oldest row of tombstones, dating all the way back to the sixteen hundreds.

“Oh it bothers me.” Christopher murmured, “but I don’t see how else our species can survive.”

“And yet, you haven’t taken a mate?” I paused and looked up at my son, “perhaps you don’t think you-”

“Let’s not keep father waiting.” Christopher cut me off, but not before I saw the hesitation on his face.

“Will you tell me why?”

“It isn’t our fault.” Topher started walking faster, “it’s the women, it’s the thought of love. I don’t claim to want to hurt anyone, and yet just my touch can mark some innocent, mark her for death. So— I shall never love.”

“Oh, but my darling,” I whispered as he moved just out of hearing, “you can’t stop falling in love.” God knew, I thought as I looked upward, I hadn’t been able to stop falling in love over and over again, regardless of the pain, the brokenness and the certain death— at the end of it all. I looked ahead and knew he hadn’t heard me, so I ran to catch up. “So you plan to hate all your life?”

We exited the cemetery, and were almost at the heavy wooden door of the church. “If that’s what keeps me from being a monster, I will always choose hate.” He pushed open the doors and the air from the church spilled out like angry bees when they were disturbed. “Be careful in your demands of my father, he’s not one for being soft.”

Oh, but he would be with me, and I knew it. This was, after all his last chance at getting his disgusting hands on me. I didn’t reply but instead followed Topher into the church— I could see past echoes of a battle happening here, I couldn’t tell how long ago. They were fighting, all the supernatural beings in our world, over, a locket. The vampires, the Fae, the shapeshifters and werewolves… Why were they fighting over a locket? I paused in the center of the church and looked up— someone had painted Eden as it once was… my mother was there, my father… me, my brothers— and the snake, and the flaming sword… it was all there. I let out a little gasp, someone had painted me wearing the golden locket that I’d seen in the echoes of the battle, it had been painted so it was glowing, pure golden light rippled out of the painting of the locket, so real it almost hurt my eyes.

“Careful, it’s best not to look into the sun.” Topher whispered reverently as he took my arm.

“The sun?”

Tother shook his head, “It’s what my father calls it. It’s special, he told me, linked somehow to the original Cassandra.”

I feigned disinterest, “Oh?”

“That’s all I know.” Topher shrugged. “It was here, now it’s gone. We don’t know where. It was the item many supernaturals fought over.”

“Why?”

Topher had walked up the steps to the pulpit and pushed on a white tile that almost looked like it was falling off the step, a portion of the floor slid away and revealed a passage down into the ground. More stale air rose up to meet us, I shivered, great— just what I wanted to head underground where demons walked.

“On that point I am not super clear, father mentioned it has something to do with the beginning of the end.”

“Well, that’s not ominous at all.” I hissed as Topher disappeared into the stairway descending into the earth.

“Coming?”

Well, nothing for it, Cassandra— you came here of your own will, and you will stand firm. “Yeah, I’m coming.” I took a few tenuous steps down the stairs, so far so good, the stairs hadn’t fallen apart, nor had the earth split open to devour me.

Topher was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. “Come on, I promise we aren’t mole people.” He rolled his eyes at me, and I made myself walk the rest of the way down into the dark.

It was cool down here, and beautiful. Marble columns, beautifully painted frescos— tapestries hanging from walls… I stared at every sight, as Topher kept guiding me, and when I stopped too long to stare at something, grabbed my arm and gently tugged me forward. Soon we were lost in a maze of passageways that seemed endless.

“Here we are,” Topher’s voice cut the silence and stillness of the air like a knife, he gestured through the open door, “my father is waiting, good luck.” He turned on his heels and disappeared into the passages of mazes, and a part of my heart ached for him as I watched him leave. I forced myself to pull away from the fear and concern I had for my son and face the challenge at hand. I looked at the open-door Christopher had left me at and squaring my shoulders I walked in. Through the open door I found myself in a strange room that looked like it had been torn into two— half the space had what looked like a science lab, complete with a metal table to dissect things on, the other appeared a comfy seating area with upholstered couches and armchairs with bookshelves and a fireplace. Lucifer was seated on one of the armchairs reading a book, his red eyes skimming the pages as his pale skin flickered with his dancing tattoos— he looked up as I entered, but I looked away, not able to meet his demon eyed gaze.

“My love.” There was the sound of fluttering and then he was there, his arms and wings around me. I grimaced and almost threw up. I was going to need to find the strength to go through with all this— because he would know if I was faking it.

“Lucas,” I murmured as I pulled away, knowing he liked this fake name over his real one. I made myself smile at him and then gave his arms a gentle squeeze while also removing them from myself, he folded his wings, and I found my way to an armchair and sat.

“Christopher tells me you would like to chat?”

I nodded, and pointed at the armchair across from me, “yes, please sit. It’s time we talked over terms,”

“Terms?”

“Rules.”

“Ahhh— and what would those be?” Lucifer asked as he made his way to the chair I was still pointing at and sat.

“I will marry you.” I held up a finger, as Lucifer almost started to speak, “but— on these terms.”

“Very well, what are the terms?”

“No more nightmares for Cass.”

“But-”

“Darling, I lived in that pit for six thousand years— it’s not romantic, it’s terrifying. I know you built that black tower for me, but I hate it. Stop. Stop now.”

“I’d already given her some space, but— alright, I won’t resume the dreams-”

“Or the visions during the day.”

“Fine. What else?”

“You give her -her last year, let her graduate, say goodby to this human world and her life and friends, properly, don’t come by the house, leave her alone. She knows she has to be with you, I am making her see that.”

“And you, what do you want?”

Yes, what did I want? “I have terms for Cass that I have already started to lay down-” hanging out with Violet and Irene for starters… but Lucifer didn’t need to know that.

“And I ask again, what about you Cassandra?”

“I want to see you in white wings when you take me, and no red eyes… but blue, like the sky. I want to travel and see some of this modern world before it is my time, my last time…” the hook was set, would he take it? “You know how much I love sunshine and nature and the wild winds.”

“Yes, I do my love, but travel? Travel where?”

I thought about the seer’s riddle, where indeed? “I want to go to the oldest city, the eye of needle-”

“Istanbul? Why didn’t you say? The markets still smell of ancient and bizarre, and-”

“So you will take me?”

“It is not as safe as I would like to take you there… Perhaps Greece? We could get a boat, sail the seas that you love so much!”

“Can we not do both?” Was I pushing my luck? Why didn’t Lucifer want to go there?

“You really want this?”

“With all my heart.” I tossed in my happiest grin, hoping to charm him.

“I suppose… but we will have to be careful. The inner council still sits underneath Istanbul.”

Ah, that was what he was afraid of. The vampire council that was formed at the start of the war. I didn’t know much about the council, only that it was formed to defeat the fallen, and that every supernatural in one last act of defiance had banded together despite their differences to throw everything they had at the fallen. The council had worked with the angels who were still on the earth in those days— but I hadn’t lived till the end of the war, so what happened afterwards was a mystery to me. I had no idea they were still around— but if they were, there had to be a reason, and part of that reason was their whole mantra about freeing the world from the Nephilim, who were snatching women left, right and center back in my day.

“They mustn’t know I am there, my love.”

“Of course not, my dear.” I cooed, “we will be swift as eagles,” and if I happened to gain more knowledge about them in my digging, all the better for me.

“And deadly as vipers.” Lucifer finished.

Nope. No, no, no… always no to the snake imagery. “Of course.” I stood. “I look forward to seeing you,” or not seeing you at all, “in a few months.”

“Leaving already?” Lucifer stood quickly.

“Unless you want my sons to realize who I am.” Lucifer froze, “yes, I know Mark and Christopher are my children, and thus far I am willing to look past how you have turned them into nothing more than weapons of your hate, but I will tell them who I am if you do anything that displeases me or breaks the terms we have discussed here today.”

Cassandra, I-”

“Save it, I don’t want to hear any more lies.” I hissed. The picture of the locket popped into my head, “before I go— I saw a very interesting picture painted on the ceiling of St Mary’s… I was there in the garden with my family, but I had this necklace on…”

“Out of the question. I refuse to talk about-”

“Mark? Topher, you around?” I called out as loudly as I could, even though the sound of everything seemed to be dampened here, this far below ground.

“Alright, alright. What do you want to know?”

“Why do you call it the sun?”

“It is pure light. It is a form preserved from the heavens, but not of the angels…”

“Wait— it’s a being?”

“Yes, a being of light— pure before corruption, sealed off from this world except in dreams, or on days the veils of the world are at their thinnest— but it is a caveat.”

“How so?”

“There shall be light, and there shall be darkness-”

Yes, and day and night, my parents had told me the story over and over again, the creation of the world… “And neither can exist at the same time.” Suddenly it dawned on me, this being of light that was tied to me, it was the downfall for Lucifer and if I was able to get my hands on it and the prophecy…

“But it was lost,”

“In the war?”

Lucifer glared at me, clearly not liking where this conversation was headed. “I think it is time for you to go. I look forward to seeing you again, my love.” Lucifer strode from the room while pulling a phone out of his pocket, “I’ll call Topher to take you home.”

I would have gloated, done a dance, laughed, cried— with the wins and information I had gathered successfully today, but before I could even explore the room after Lucifer’s swift exit, Christopher was there and ready to escort me back the way we’d come, as if I would have ever found the way out by myself. I was utterly relieved when we finally emerged from the underground into the church, even this dusty air had more life in it then the caverns below.

“I take it you were successful with your rules and terms?” Topher glanced sideways at me, clearly noticing the shift in my mood.

“Yes.”

“Cassandra, I am, I am truly glad for you. I make it no secret to say I am sorry your life will be cut short.”

My heart squeezed in my chest a little hearing Christopher even admit the smallest amount of empathy. “Thank you, Christopher. When I am gone, please hold on to your humanity.”

“I will try.”

We left the church behind us, and I felt freer to wander through the cemetery now that we were no longer rushed. Even Christopher seemed more at ease, not pushing me back to the car, but letting me meander my way through the headstones. I stopped at each of the graves of my ancestors who were buried here. I let myself cry as I felt their pain, and whispered prayers of love, hope and protection over their tormented souls.

“I didn’t realize you were so religious.” Christopher muttered when we finally left the cemetery behind us and got back into his little blue car.

“I am not.” I wiped away the last few tears, “I do not understand this word— religious. I-” I stopped myself, I had almost revealed something about my life that would have given away that I was the original Cassandra, and his mother. “I’m sorry, it’s not that I don’t understand this word, I just really don’t like it. I like to think of myself as someone who has a relationship with-” but I didn’t, did I? God had cursed me. I didn’t have a relationship with him, and now I was choosing of my own free will to become a vampire, also a thief of the tree of life… that was as cursed as- “lets just say, I’d like to have a relationship with God, over ritualistic ceremony and whatever is encompassed by the word religion.”

“Sure. I guess.” Christopher nodded as if he understood everything I was saying, but I knew he hadn’t. on the drive back I looked out the car window and watched the world pass by, people and places, buildings of stone… people who didn’t know that the devil lived below them under a church so very close by. Too soon we were weaving through streets I recognized from my walk to Acroft, and Topher was pulling the car up in front of Cass’ house. “Well, this is your stop,” he paused for a second, “look, please take care of yourself. And I’ll see you around soon.”

“Are you going to be lurking from the shadows?”

“Nope. That’s not my job.” He grinned, “And Mark’s too busy playing hooky. I might be taking up my post again next year at Acroft, give Mark a break. It has been a few years.”

I nodded, “Well, you just do what’s best for you.” I got out of the car, “and you make sure to stay as human as possible.”

“Right, I’ll give it a go.”

I smiled, and closed the door, waving over my shoulder before heading up the steps to Cass’ place. I pulled the house key out and let myself inside. I could hear Mariah and Ray laughing from the great room, I didn’t want to face them, and why not let them be joyful for a while longer, before their daughter went missing and died. Instead, I made my way to Cass’ room, where I flopped back on the bed, as the cell phone started to ring. Great— was Mark calling or that girl, Mel? How did Cass talk to her anyways, and what did they talk about? Apparently, they were best friends… I pulled the phone out of the gray purse and flipped it open.

“Hello?”

“Ahhhh I got her!” Violet’s voice sounded somewhat far away, “Hi Cassandra!”

“Hi Violet, what’s up?”

“Feel like joining Irene and I at Plumanara?”

Did I ever! “YES! After the day I’ve had?”

“Amazing, Irene and I are already in the neighborhood, ready in five? I can’t wait to hear about your day.”

I heard the implication in her voice, could she sense that I was Cassandra not Cass? “Of course, I have so much news.”

“Good news?”

“Yes, the best.” I paused, “You better catch Cass up tomorrow before class though.”

“Of course. I’ll pick her up, but it’s you right now, isn’t it?”

“If you mean Cassandra, daughter of Eve, then yes. Can you tell?”

“Oddly, I can. There’s something different in your tone, just different enough that I can pinpoint it.”

“Good.” I got up and threw open the wardrobe, “Also, I desperately need to go shopping.”

Violet laughed, “We can definitely do that soon. See you in like three mins.”

“Kay, bye.” I hung up the phone and stared at the closet, well I guess I’d just have to pick the best from what I had and go from there. I reached in and closed my eyes, whatever I grabbed was what I was going to wear. “Eeeeeeee….” I pulled and opened my eyes at the same time, and was strangely comforted— it was a white summer dress, not nearly as fancy as I was sure Irene and Violet were, but it was plain and simple, elegant— white gathered cap sleeves, scooped neck, scooped back, fitted waist and flaring out into a bell skirt that hit my mid thigh. I squealed and quickly changed, already hearing a knock on the door. “I got it!” I called as I threw the purse to cross myself and ran down the hall toward the front door. “Going out! Be back soon!” Plumanara here I come!

I slipped out the door, and skipped down the stairs breathing in the cool evening air, and saw the limo already waiting along the curb, Irene and a Violet hanging out the door, music spilling from the inside of the limo. I felt for the first time since arriving in this strange world and being brought back from death, a sense of belonging and comfortability in this skin. I felt a laugh bubble up from inside me, from the depths of my being as I watched Violet and Irene bobbing to the music. Perhaps I could adapt to living in this modern unfamiliar world after all. Letting the laughter spill from within me, I ran to the limo and joined my friends. Who knew that Cassandra, daughter of Eve, could even make friends? Definitely not me, but I had to admit, my life was better for having them in it. I had been alone for too long, kept people and even my own thoughts at bay, it was time to live, and let people in— to learn to love again.

“It’s early! Are we heading straight to the club?”

Violet shook her head, and looked over at Irene, who grinned. “I made an appointment with my favorite tattoo artist, no pressure, Vi is getting something small, I’m getting something small and they said if all three of us were getting something roughly the same size that they would only charge one fee— which I don’t mind paying, but you have to know what you want…”

“Tattoos?” Well that was a little bit of a shock. I looked at Irene and Violet with new eyes and realized they both were pretty inked up, but Violet’s tattoo’s were moving, living— like a birthmark, whereas Irene’s were not. I grabbed Violet’s arm and traced the intricate pattern of ivy that ran around her wrist and up her arm, “Juliette has a similar pattern but its-”

“On her face.” Violet murmured, staring at her own arm, and then showing me her left arm as well, where there was a slightly different moving tattoo, bands of gold, white and green ivy from her elbow all the way down her wrist circling her ring finger. “The one on my right arm is my Pureblood birthmark, the one on my left is my wedding tattoo, marking me as married, Viktor has the same mark on his left arm.”

I dropped Violet’s arm. It was similar to the mark of Cain, the first murderer, he too had been marked, so everyone knew who he was— I shivered, when did these birthmarks or tattoos come into play? I didn’t remember vampires back in my day having any such marks. But I also had recognized that I, even in Cass’ body, had been able to tell which beings were supernatural and what kind of supernatural, when she clearly hadn’t… “You were born this way?”

“Yes.”

I grabbed Irene’s arm and studied the tattoos on her arms, they didn’t move, but one of them did indeed look like it hadn’t been put on her, but that she had been born with it. “This one?” I gently traced it on her arm.

“Yes,” Irene whispered, “that’s the one that I was born with— a rose by no other name… and no, it doesn’t move, it just shows that I am a vampire. We’re all born into this world— unless we’re made, even though turning someone is technically illegal. Those who are turned don’t have marks, but their children will, if they aren’t killed by the council.”

I filed this knowledge away, and tried not to look super curious. So, the Nephilim had ancient script written on their skin and vampires had living tattoo birthmarks… but only the Purebloods. Well, that explained why so many of them were tattooed.

“So do you know what you’d like to get?”

“Irene, don’t push her.” Violet chided.

What did I want? Did I want something? I closed my eyes, and thought about my life— “A rose by no other name,” I whispered. I could see it in my mind’s eye, my life, this long chain of roses, but roses on a thorny chain. I shivered, suddenly I knew where I’d seen a tattoo like that— Juliette, who was Marcus’ twin. “Roses, ivy and thorns…”

“I’m sorry, you want the Steinheart family crest?” Irene asked incredulously.

My eyes flew open, “I didn’t, what?” My voice came out as a squeak, as I made uncomfortable eye contact with Violet, my cheeks going as purple as my eyes.

“I suppose it was always going to be h-”

“Violet!” I cut her off, still so embarrassed.

“Look Vi, if that’s what she wants, there’s no reason to stop her.”

I looked out the window, choosing silence over more awkward conversation. There was something about riding in a limo that just made the entire experience for travel that much more, well more. I thought about how it felt to be in Christopher’s little blue car in comparison, the bumpy ride, or the way you felt flung as the car turned a corner… Here it was as if we were floating on air, or not moving at all— but when I looked out the window the world was washing by, a wave of color. Irene danced to the music, her orange dress clashing horribly with her pink hair, but she didn’t seem to mind, and somehow pulled it off without looking like one of the traffic cones that littered the area around Cass’ house. Violet also danced, but I could tell she was much more interested in continuing to talk to me than just having a good time. The limo slowed, pulling onto a hilly street, where there were little boutiques on both sides of the road— there weren’t a lot of people here, only handfuls of shoppers walking about, probably because it was dinner time and the majority of people who were out, were probably in restaurants by now.

“Where are we?”

“This is my favorite place to shop,” Violet pointed up at one of the buildings that appeared to be empty and closed up, “Idrisa, is the best dress shop around.”

“But-” Irene interrupted, “that’s not where we’re going.” Irene pushed open the limo door, “we’re going next door, to see Roger at his tattoo parlor— Ofendisma.”

“Quite the name.” I chuckled, how many people had been offended by his tattoos for him to choose a name like that?

Violet also chuckled, clearly enjoying making Irene a little uncomfortable. “She’s right,” was all Violet could reply to Irene’s glare before she bounced off and across the street. “Well, we better follow her, she’s kind of bossy, but she’s got a good heart.”

Violet and I exited the limo and followed Irene across the street to where she stood impatiently waiting for us, tapping her toe on the cement sidewalk. We walked up a few steps to the door of the building that looked closed up and abandoned. I was about to say as much when Irene raised her fist and knocked in a strange pattern, a moment later the door swung open, and we entered a dimly lit foyer with a staircase ascending in front of us and on either side of the foyer two locked doors. Irene walked to her left and knocked again in a different pattern, and I heard a lock disengage, she tossed us a grin and pushed open the door.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Irene disappeared into the open doorway.

I sighed, why did everything with these vampires have to be so secretive? But I followed anyway, as Violet gave my arm a little squeeze, as if to tell me I was safe with her. The tattoo parlor wasn’t very large, in fact I looked like the front room in a house, with chairs set up and equipment and mirrors, or maybe that was the hair salon I was thinking of, not a house… regardless, it was quite a fascinating sight. There were a few supernaturals in the shop getting tattoos from beings that were clearly Fae, their eyes all one big marble of color, just like their shape shifting friends. The hum and buzz of the shop was almost calming, I watched curiously as the beautiful designs appeared on the supernatural beings skin, as needles pierced them, and the ink flowed… I was entranced. I took a step forward, and my vision was blocked by a giant werewolf.

“Hi Roger!” Irene stuck out her hand and was met with a bear-like hug instead.

“Irene Inverness, my favorite customer! So you have brought your friends.” Roger looked me up and down, I knew he could sense I was human, but he probably could also see the fallen’s mark on my skin. “Do you all know what design you would like?”

“Oh yes! We do!” Irene was practically jumping up and down in her excitement, her orange dress floofing up around her like an orange cloud. “I’d like a heart of stars to go with my rose that I already have. Violet wants an infinity sign on her foot and this one-” she pointed at me, “wants the Steinheart family birthmark…”

Everyone went quiet, even the Fae who were busy tattooing the supernaturals stopped, when Irene said the Steinheart name. Was everyone really that afraid of the Steinhearts?

“Interesting choice for a human.” Roger finally stated, while clearing his throat, and glancing over at his employees, who seemed to get whatever message he was sending and resumed their designing. “But you are an interesting human, aren’t you?” Roger gestured at the backroom, and the three of us filed past him and into the other room, which was very similar to the front room, but with only one chair. “Who’s first?”

“She is.” Irene gave me a little push forward.

“Very well, come sit, little human.”

I went and sat on the chair, and laid back. I was suddenly wildly scared for no reason, I had lived through so many things and now I was afraid of a little needle prick?

“Take a deep breath.” Roger intoned, as he took my right arm, “think of something else, something far far away.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and began to think of my past. There was a memory that had been bugging me for a while— like it had been planted into my mind by someone else, but I knew it was my memory. I could see myself at my cave, overlooking the Pangea… I felt the needle prick and tried to get back to my memory… the Pangea, I was humming, as the twins tossed about within me, my vampire children… the children I’d never seen. I grit my teeth as the pain from the needle threatened to pull me out of my memory. I was humming, listening to my babies as they dreamt. A man was making his way toward me, a vampire, but not from my time. He looked so worried, and my heart went out to him. He seemed shocked to see me and confused. He looked so familiar and yet not… his green eyes and his- I gasped, my arm was throbbing, I couldn’t help it, I opened my eyes and looked over where Roger was working.

“Almost done.”

Impossible. I had only been allowing myself to sink into that memory for a few minutes, but when I looked down at my arm, I could see the rose, thorn and ivy design snaking its way around my arm and down to my wrist. “It’s beautiful.”

“And deadly.” Roger whispered, glancing at where Irene and Violet sat chit chatting on folding chairs against the wall. “You really must have a death wish.” Roger was putting something over the tattoo, “second skin.” He gestured, “Leave this on, to protect the tattoo while your skin is healing, and try not to get it wet, and for the love of god, don’t scratch it— even though it’s going to be itchy for the first little bit.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I managed to choke out.

“All done. Want to grab whoever is next?”

I slid off the chair and walked over to Irene and Violet. “I’m all done! Who’s next?”

“Ooooooh, let me see!” Irene grabbed my arm and stared at the swirling tattoo, “this is beautiful, no idea why you’d choose it, but beautiful.” She dropped my arm, “my turn!” And skipped off to where Roger was.

“So,” Violet asked me, as I sat down, “the Steinheart crest?”

I sighed, and pulled my throbbing arm to myself, cradling it. “I know I promised Juliette that I would stay away from Marcus-”

“But you really love him, don’t you?”

“Well, I loved a version of him that I don’t know still exists.”

“Or maybe, that version of him doesn’t exist anymore because you didn’t exist anymore… I’ve heard the rumors, stories of a man who once had a heart, and not only cares about power and having pure blooded children.”

“He has a harem, doesn’t he…” I whispered, somehow knowing he had tried to replace me but failed.

“Yes.”

Damn that man, and his stupidity. “Of course he does.” I glanced at Violet’s worried face, “look Violet, I’m not going anywhere near Marcus, at least not now— I have this whole death thing I have to survive, and then transitioning and then-” we’ll see where I ended up after all that. “And hopefully being able to help other women who’ve been ‘marked,’ so,” I shrugged, but still cradled my throbbing arm.

“You’re not going to be able to hide that tattoo from the fallen.”

No, I wasn’t, and I didn’t even care. I shrugged again. “Or Cass. She’s going to be mad.”

Violet chucked, “I’ll try to help with that. How was the rest of your day?”

Oh, yeah, I’d almost forgotten what an eventful day it had been. “I was called into the Dean’s office, and Pierre? Steinheart’s servant, he told me to stay away from Marcus on severe terms, and then I called Topher and met up with Lucas, to set some terms.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I basically guaranteed her the rest of her human year at Acroft, and that she wouldn’t have any more creepy dreams, or visions— and that Lucas wouldn’t visit her. The next time she sees him is when he comes to collect her for the covenant ceremony.”

“Wow, that’s pretty impressive that you got him to agree to all that.”

“Thanks, I thought so!” I contemplated telling Violet about the necklace and the being of light trapped within it that could help destroy Lucifer but decided not to. That was a secret that I had a feeling would unfold itself, at the right time. “Also, it might not have been a coincidence that Cass called me back, apparently it’s part of a prophecy…” I would have told her more, but Irene bounded back and sent Violet over to Roger. Violet cast me a look like, ‘this conversation isn’t over,’ and I nodded.

Violet was only in the chair for thirty minutes, but I was mentally drained by the time she was done— Irene didn’t stop talking, nor did she stop moving. We must have discussed everything from braiding hair to favorite styles of music, fashion, men, shopping, drinks… some of the things she talked about I didn’t even understand, but I nodded and acted like I did anyway. When Violet finally made her way to us, I had never been more relieved. Irene grinned ogling over Violet’s foot tattoo, before flitting off and pulling out a wallet to pay Roger. I turned away and looked over at Violet,

“Please say it’s time to go dancing.” I sent Violet a begging look, and Violet merely laughed at me.

“What? Miss me that much? Or was Irene just too much?”

I laughed this time as Irene again danced over to us, “let’s go PAR-TAY!”

We all had a good laugh as we left the tattoo parlor behind us, giggling as we got back in the limo. I was ready to let loose and dance with the electric beat of the music at Plumanara. The limo pulled away from the curb and we headed toward the club. I glanced down at my arm one last time, yes, Cass was going to be very angry about this one.

14 Miss Marked

I awoke in the hallway in the dark, confused, in pain and so so tired. “What, the?” I sat up, and sensed Cassandra was still hanging about, “Cassandra?”

“Sorry. It was a late night and I was exhausted, after the day we had? Surely you understand…”

Surely I understood? Ugh, I was so done with this. “Are you going to tell me what happened? One second I was being thrown and the next, I was in a void of consciousness…”

“Yeah, I’m actually not sure what happened there… but Pierre wanted to talk to me.”

“Why?”

“Just warning me to stay away. That’s all.”

I could feel Cassandra’s indifference. “And will you? Stay away from the Steinhearts?”

“For now.”

Great. That sounded promising. I grit my teeth, “any reason I’m in so much pain?” My arm was throbbing. I looked down, but in the dark I couldn’t see anything.

“Um, don’t be too mad.”

“What did you do?”

“You might have gotten a tattoo last night…”

“Oh my god. My mom is going to KILL me!” I groaned, throwing my hands over my face. “Cassandra, you’re pushing the line. If you push much more, people are going to notice that there’s something wrong with me and-” my cellphone buzzed, it was sitting on the floor beside me, so was my purse. “Ugh. I can’t do this right now.” I picked up the phone and flipped it open- “Weird. That’s Mels number.”

“Maybe you should answer it.”

“You think?” Mel had yet to answer any of my texts even though I knew she was back in the city, and had at least the next two weeks off, yet I stared at the screen, watching it ring, contemplating ignoring it.

“Cass, I know how much you miss her— just answer it. Isn’t it time to put aside grudges and frustration? Think about how much time you have left, spend it with those you love.”

Damn it. I hated it when Cassandra was right. I sighed and picked up the call. “Hey Mels.”

“Cass! I’m so glad you picked up…”

“I wasn’t sure if I was going to but-”

“I’m sorry Cass. I might have overreacted when we last talked.”

“Maybe just a little.” I slumped back against the wall. “Why are you calling Mels? It’s really late.”

“I know. I couldn’t sleep. I was—I am,” I heard her giant sigh through the phone, “I’m just used to a much different schedule from when I am at work. I’m often up into the really late hours.”

“I remember.”

“I’m going stir crazy— Look I know tomorrow is officially the first day of school, and the last thing you want to do is to stay up… but any chance you’d want to grab a coffee at Breka?”

“The cafe that’s open twenty four hours?”

“Yeah, there’s one on West Hastings street, like a ten minute walk from us.”

“Us?”

“Yeah. I might have gone for a late night drive… and I might have parked outside your place, hoping you’d be up…”

“Aw, I missed you too.” I grabbed the purse from the ground and pushed myself to my feet with a grunt. “On my way out.”

“Great! I’m in the silver Toyota Matrix, I’ll flash my lights if you don’t see me right away.”

“Thanks. See you in a minute.” I snapped the phone shut. Dang, I really hurt. “Cassandra, when I get home, we’re having a serious conversation about putting tattoos and such on me without my permission.” She didn’t reply. I glanced at the time on the phone, three in the morning. “Lovely.” Guess I wasn’t sleeping tonight. I looked over my shoulder, the house was quiet, I was a little shocked that with Cassandra just dropping me on the floor no one had woken and found me there. I was also a little grateful, mom was definitely going to be furious I’d gone and gotten a tattoo. I left the house, the air outside was so cool on my skin, it was refreshing, after sitting in the hot hallway for who knows how long. I blinked, it was strange that I could see better in the darkness then I used to be able to, but I had no explanation as to why. I skipped down the stairs and paused on the sidewalk, looking up and down the street. It was quiet, so quiet, with only the sound of the breeze, and some crickets. A few feet away car lights flashed at me, right, Mels. I made my way over to her car, and she popped out, and ran to give me a hug.

“I really did miss you!”

I stared at Mel, it had been so long since I had actually seen her in person, she looked different— older. “Are you okay Mels?” Her face looked drawn, as if this wasn’t the first time she had gone without sleep, and her skin, normally brown from the sun was pale and pasty, almost alabaster… something wasn’t right.

Mel laughed, and hooked arms with me, “I’m fine! I promise! A little tired, obviously, and I’ve been stuck inside most of the summer, but I’ll live. I have the next three weeks off, and I’m going to make sure I rest— but I wanted to check in and see how you’ve been doing!”

We started walking along the street, I wasn’t sure I believed her but I wasn’t going to push my luck, especially when this was Mels reaching out. “I’m alright.” I lied.

“And the nightmares?”

“Gone.” Which was really odd. I had a feeling I had Cassandra to thank for that, which was one thing I was grateful for, probably one of the very few at this moment. “And my mom and Ray are doing great too. They actually dropped some pretty crazy news on me the other day…”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, mom and Ray are having a kid.”

“Woah— that’s pretty big news.” Mels pulled us to a stop and turned me to face her, “you sure you’re okay? I know how you feel about Ray…”

“I’m actually okay.” It was odd, but I was. As long as the baby wasn’t a girl, I’d be fine. It had to be a boy, it just had to— Cassandra and I had worked on finding a way to end this curse… it would all be moot if-

“You don’t look okay.”

“Hmmm? Oh, I was thinking about something else. School stuff. Don’t worry, I swear I’m cool with the baby thing. Mom deserves happiness.”

“And so do you.”

We started to walk again, crossing the empty street onto Cordova. “There are so many coffee places down here!” I tried to steer the conversation onto something else, anything else…

“Yes, and they’re allllll closed.” Mels gave my arm a quick squeeze, teasing me.

“I know, I know, I’m addicted to coffee.”

“Addictions are bad, you know.” Mels face and voice turned serious.

“Mels, I was just talking about coffee-”

“Yeah, I know, but you have to be careful Cass. Even a coffee addiction can turn into something more deadly.”

We were almost at Howe street, there were a lot more people about here since we were entering a hotel district. I ignored Mels, she sounded crazy, besides what did I know about addictions, other than coffee?

“Seriously Cass, you have an addictive personality, please be careful.”

“Is that what you’re worried about? I am always at the library reading, studying, and sure I drink a lot of coffee, but beyond my ‘addictions’ to studying and coffee I am the world’s most boring person, and in no danger of adopting more addictions. I promise.”

“We’ll see.” Mel whispered so quietly I almost didn’t catch it.

The crosswalk sign beeped, so Mels and I walked across the street, Breka was in view now, and it was bopping. I was surprised at how many people were either sitting on the cafe tables outside or in the cafe. Mel and I made our way into the cafe, and under the lights I could finally see this tattoo that Cassandra had gotten us— I gasped, it was HUGE. The tattoo started at my elbow, roses on a chain of ivy with thorns, and wrapped around my arm in a descending spiral until it hit my wrist, where it tailed off. I threw my arm behind my back as if I could hide it from Mel, I should have grabbed a cardigan.

“Coming?” Mel was already at the end of a long line of customers. I nodded and headed over to where she was, again noticing things about her that didn’t add up, her clothes hung looser on her than before, and her hair, while magnificent, hung so long, it looked like she hadn’t even had it trimmed in a year… she turned and smiled at me, her brown eyes soft and caring, but under them dark circles showing how exhausted she was.

“Mel?”

“I’m not sure I have a job to go back to.”

“What? Why?”

“Cass— I work for some very powerful people. I told you one of the last times that we were prepping for the twins’ birthday party?”

“Yeah,” wow that seemed so long ago, that conversation, was it really only what? Almost a month ago? “And how does that make you lose your job?”

“Cass, I-” Mel bit her lip, as the line moved and we were closer to the till.

“Maybe we should figure out what we want.”

We both turned our attention to the pastry case, which was full of every kind of treat imaginable. I hadn’t been to Breka in a while, even though I loved that it was open late, and their pastries were so good, they always made me drool. “I’m going to have the Earl Gray cream puff and a large mocha.”

“YUM. I think I’ll do the same.”

The barista at the counter was a very goth guy with long brown hair braided, large spacers, black eyeshadow and eyeliner— and the apron over his hopefully work approved goth clothing made him appear to have stepped right out of the Barbie movie. “Hi, what can I get for you?”

I glanced at Mel, who was trying to keep a straight face, “Um, hi Toby. Can my friend and I get two large mochas and two Earl Gray cream puffs?”

“To go?”

“Nope, for here.”

“Great…. that will be twenty four dollars even. Cash or debit?”

Melanie pulled out her purple wallet and a stack of cash. “Cash,” she counted out the exact change and handed it to him. “Thanks.”

“Can I grab your name for your order?”

“Mel.”

“Got it, you can pick up your order at the end of the counter. Thanks.”

We walked over to the end of the counter and stood with the growing line of people also waiting as the poor baristas worked both bars and another barista was grabbing all the pastries. I looked over at Mel, she still looked unhappy.

“So you were saying? You might lose your job?”

“Yeah.” Mel looked around, as if someone might over hear us. “I was supposed to go home last week to start my vacation, but the girl I watch? She’s been having a rough time lately.” Mel sighed, and looked lost, so deep in thought that I almost wondered if she remembered I was still standing beside her. “Anyways— she asked me for my help with… let’s just call it a break.”

“What do you mean break?”

Mel pulled me closer and whispered in my ear, “I helped her run away.”

I gasped. “You what?” No wonder Mel thought her job was in jeopardy. “Mel— how could you?”

“Extenuating circumstances.”

“Order for Mel?”

Mel and I surged forward into the crowd to grab our drinks and pastries and then we found an empty seat, tucked away in the corner of the shop. “Look Cass, I don’t expect you to understand, but WOAH!”

I suddenly realized that my tattooed arm was fully visible to Mel, since I had grabbed my pastry in one hand and the mocha in the other. “Oops.”

“Okay, little miss, ‘I’m boring,’ talk to me. When did this happen?”

“Um, yesterday?”

Mel grabbed my arm, “I want to see!” And almost instantly dropped it. “Um, Cass?” Her brown eyes flickered from my arm to my face, “Is there a reason you have that specific tattoo?” I could hear worry, or was it fear, entering her voice but I tried not to let it dampen the fact that we were finally reunited.

I shrugged, I had no idea, Cassandra had picked it, but I didn’t know if it meant anything, I’d have to ask her later. “Honestly,” I lied, “I was dared to get a tattoo-” I glanced down at my arm looking for anything I could say honestly about the tattoo, “and all I told the guy was that I loved ivy, and roses and this is what he came up with.” I shrugged, “why? Does it mean something?”

Mel frowned, “Where did you say you went to get this tattoo?”

Yikes, time for more lies. “I can’t remember, something about floral-”

“And who did you go with?”

“Look Mels, I know you have your own opinions about my classmates but-”

“Which ones?” Mels hair fell over her face giving her a very creepy vibe, almost like she could have stepped out of the Ring or some other creepy story…

“Violet and Irene.”

“Those idiots.” Mel hissed, “they know better.”

“Okay Mels, something is clearly bothering you. I’m too tired to try to figure it out like some cryptic puzzle, so how about you just tell me what the big deal is, huh?”

Mel took my tattooed arm and stared at it, “This isn’t just a random design Cass, this design is the birthmark of a very powerful house, ancient— supernatural family… and it’s tattooed on your arm.”

I suddenly felt very ill, what had Cassandra done? “Um, which family?”

“The one I work for.”

The Steinhearts? Okay, Cassandra was in big trouble, hadn’t she just told me she was going to try to stay away from them.

“Cass, you okay? You don’t look well.”

I took a giant gulp of my mocha, which burnt its way down my throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.” SO many lies tonight… When had I gotten so good at lying to those I loved? Cassandra was a bad influence. I took a bite of my cream puff. “Well,” I mumbled in between eating and sipping my mocha, “I had no idea.” I shrugged, but Mel didn’t look convinced. “So, what are you going to do?”

“About?”

“I might have gotten tattooed with some kind of family crest or whatever, but you helped a child run away… that’s illegal last I checked. How come there isn’t some kind of amber alert that went out? You’d think that-”

“You’d think that there would be one, yeah I know.” Mel looked around the cafe suspiciously, her gaze falling on a group of teens in the opposite corner, who reminded me of students at Acroft, she froze, as if she was in some kind of trance. “They would have, but they already know where she is. Plus, it’s best if their kind didn’t send out alerts— it kind of puts them in the spotlight a little too much, and they usually deal with their own things in house. I’m sure they have people already-”

“Mel?” She blinked and looked at me as if I was a ghost. “Mel, you’re scaring me, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

I looked down at my phone again, the clock flashed four in the morning at me. Great, two and a half hours till my alarm went off and I had to be up for school. I sighed, “well I don’t believe you. You want to keep secrets, great, good for you, but don’t say nothing is going on. Where did this girl run away to?”

“I sent her to those who I knew would help her.”

“Loving your cryptic answers.” I was distracted by the group of teens in the corner, for some reason I felt like I knew some of them, or one of them? I turned and stared at them, just as Mel still was. It was a group of the randomest people, some punks with blue hair, vampires? Some who reminded me of Flimheart with his beady marble eyes, and a girl with blonde hair laughing as she reached out and touched, I gasped. “Mark?”

I don’t know how, but it was as if he heard me from across the cafe, his head shot up and our eyes locked. What was Mark doing with that crowd of misfits? Mark leaned over and said something to the blonde girl who frowned, he nodded at the others in the group and made his way across the cafe to where Mel and I were sitting, pulling up a chair and plonking down into it, grinning at Mel, and tossing a nod at me, but not really looking at me.

“Mark, where have you been? You’ve been missing a lot of school lately…”

“Hi Mel.” Mark muttered ignoring me. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. How’s life beyond Acroft walls?”

“Hi Mark.” I glared at Mel, who shrugged. “Yeah, it has been a while. Good to see you.”

“Good to see a living breathing human.” Mark replied, casting a glance my way as if that was supposed to mean something, but as he went to look away he saw my arm and snatched it. “This isn’t funny.” He hissed, “What possessed you to get-”

“Mark, she doesn’t know.” Mel interrupted.

“And that’s half the problem.” Mark spat as he dropped my arm like a hot potato.

“Why are you here Mark?” I tried to redirect.

“I was avoiding you and your-”

“Mel doesn’t need to know.” I cut him off. Perhaps we all had secrets that shouldn’t be shared.

“Right— well, I have been avoiding certain,” he paused, “truths. Spending time with people who have nothing to do with my family, who aren’t going to— you really haven’t told her?”

“Told me what?”

“Mel, I-”

“Damn it Cass, whatever you’re not telling me, you-”

“It has to do with my nightmare. You remember the one…” Mel nodded, “Well, it turns out, Acroft and I were fated. And not in a good way.”

“What are you talking about?” Mel leaned in, “Mark, what is she talking about?”

“Hssssss….” Mark threw his hands over his face, “If only I didn’t know what you were talking about. If only…”

Suddenly I realized Mark wasn’t just talking about me, “Mark, what have you done?”

“A thing I swore never to do…” Mark moaned, curling over his chair.

I grit my teeth. “So, who did you doom to die?”

Mel gasped as if finally turning a page in her mind had caught her up to where I was, and what was happening. “Wait— Mark, you marked someone?”

Mark didn’t reply, he just moaned.

“And Cass, you’re, you-”

“Yes, I’m marked.”

For a few minutes no one at our table spoke, I pretended to trace spots on the table, not looking at Mel or Mark— instead sipping my mocha occasionally and finishing off the giant cream puff. A voice startled me from my purposeful avoidance.

“Hey Mark, are you coming back anytime soon?”

I snuck a peek at the speaker; it was the blonde girl who Mark had been sitting with before he’d spotted Mel and me.

“Bella— look, I’m kind of in the middle of something. I’ll head over after I wrap up here.”

“Sure, I guess.” The girl, Bella, flounced back the way she’d arrived in a way that very much reminded me of Irene.

“That was her, wasn’t it?” Mel bluntly asked.

Mark nodded. “She’s a transfer student, Annabelle, starting school in the morning at Acroft. God knows, I didn’t mean to— we just hit it off, and we were laughing and joking and I… I thought of how nice it would be to have her at my side, always— and I reached out to stop her from tripping on her own shoes, and that’s when… God, what have I done?” Mark looked over at her, this girl, who now shared my fate.

“What are you going to do Mark?” Mel asked, seeming to know more about this topic then I would have liked. “You’ve marked her. If you take her, she’ll die, but if you don’t…”

“Don’t worry about it, Mel. You just worry about the fact that your bestie here is doomed, I’ll fight off my own fate for as long as possible.”

“And how do you plan to do that, and do your job?”

“Look, I’m handing over the reins of my position to Toph next fall. This school year, I just have to avoid her unless we’re in groups, for as long as possible. Besides, I got the most random message from Vik yesterday, looks like I have a project, so I’ll get out of a bunch of school.” Mark shrugged, just then his phone buzzed, he pulled it out of his pocket and flipped the small silver phone open scanning the screen, “speaking of, duty calls. Gotta run, but have a great first last day of school, Cass.” Mark pulled himself together and slunk out of the cafe, even as Annabelle scanned the room for him.

“Wow.” Mel shook her head. “And you couldn’t have told me?”

“And said what, Mel? You’re working at some fancy house, I never get to see you— and oh, hey, my nightmares, they involve the devil and having his demon child- oh, and the best part? Having this demon child will KILL me? Sure, you would have believed me…”

“Okay, I get it. I wasn’t around. And you’re right, it sounds insane, but Cass— you have to remember, I went to Acroft, I know way more than you’ll ever know, and I understand that weird is everyday here— things, people, the supernatural? It’s all there wrapped up in the secret that is Acroft High. I was groomed for my position, and now? Now I don’t know what to do! I helped a vampire run away from home, so best case scenario I run away and have lost my job, the only job I was prepared for, and now I find out my best friend is destined to die? Cass, you should never have gotten involved with supernatural beings.”

“Mel, you don’t even know the half of it!” I hissed back, suddenly furious. She had no idea that I had no choice in the matter, that my ancestor was the original Cassandra, and I wasn’t ever going to tell her. “Look, you should just take care of yourself, seeing as you have issues of your own to deal with.” I pushed myself up off my chair, I’m going home.”

“Cass please!” Mel also stood up, “we rarely get to see each other, can’t we at least be civil?”

“Walk me home?”

Mel nodded, scooping her cream puff into her mouth, and taking a swig of her mocha, we left the little cafe behind us. I tried to see if Annabelle was still there with those other people, though ‘people’ was putting it lightly, but I didn’t spot her or the group she’s been with. I looked down at my phone to check the time, almost four thirty, by the time we walked home it would be almost five in the morning. I sighed, as Mel hooked arms with me and we made our way back towards my house. It was misty out, the moon was hidden now, but when I took a deep breath I swear it smelled like fall— the smell of leaves about to fall off branches, and wet dirt and fresh grass… Those smells were almost as dear to me as the smells of old books. It was too early for sunrise, but it wasn’t as dark out as before, and under the street lamps I watched the mist curl around buildings or waft through the air like octopus tentacles curling and twisting, reaching for something that wasn’t there. Any other time I would have said it was romantic— but right now it just creeped the hell out of me. When we finally reached my house, I invited Mel in, and we headed straight for the kitchen, where we made another pot of coffee, and Mel busied herself with making a large breakfast, which took up the better part of an hour, at the end of which Ray wandered into the kitchen, looking shocked and not quite fully awake.

“Ahhhah… Good morning ladies!” Ray adjusted his glasses on his face, “I didn’t realize that anyone was up yet, or that we had company. Good morning Melanie, it’s been a while. Are you in town long?”

“Three weeks, and yes, it has been a hot second since I’ve been over, glad Mariah didn’t move anything, otherwise making breakfast would have taken twice as long.” Mel giggled, and I wished I could adopt her carefree vibe, especially since I knew Mel also had a lot going on in her life. “I figured, first official day of school for Acroft High was a big day I didn’t want to miss for Cass.”

“Ah, yes. The first day of your last year.” Ray grinned.

How apt those words were, Ray would never know. Mel cast a glance at my tattoo, and I jumped. “Sorry Ray, I’ll be right back, going to grab a cardigan, it’s a little chilly out.” Slash mom is going to KILL me… ugh, Cassandra, why did you have to complicate my life? Annabelle’s face flashed through my mind as I dodged out of the kitchen and into my room to grab a cardigan. Annabelle was one of the reasons I had agreed to Cassandra’s plan in the first place, to save other women who became marked just like me, just like all the women in my family. I threw open the wardrobe and took out a green cardigan, throwing it over the white dress. It would be warmer later, but for now, this would hide my tattoo nicely. I could hear conversation wafting from the kitchen, sounded like mom was there too, I glanced at my alarm clock, six in the morning. Wow, I’d been up all night. I gave myself a once over in the mirror, my dark hair needed a brush, and my face looked as pale as Mels, but at least I didn’t have bags under my eyes, that was a win, considering I hadn’t slept. I ran to the bathroom and picked up a brush. I ran it through my hair, before washing my face and brushing my teeth— these few normal, human things made me feel more alive. I smiled at my reflection, “This is the best it’s going to be today, and that’s okay.”

“We make our own futures.”

“Cassandra?” I called out, but she was gone. I wanted to tell her about Annabelle, and how technically she was mismarked after all, Mark had never meant to mark her, but that would have to wait, I could hear mom calling my name. Sighing, I left the bathroom and made my way back into the kitchen.

“Cass! You look lovely this morning.”

I smiled at my mother, wishing I could say the same, but she looked tossed, sleep deprived and worn out. “Thanks mom.”

“It’s so nice to see you and Mel hanging out again.”

Yeah, it was.

“Mel, are you taking Cass to school today?”

“I can if you want me to!” Mel tossed in my direction as she chomped down on a piece of toast.

I had this distinct feeling I was forgetting something, like I already had plans, but I wasn’t sure if I did… must be a Cassandra thing— Perhaps she’d arranged for someone to pick me up, and if she did it was probably Violet, so I shook my head, “no, we were up late last night, how about you go home and get some sleep.”

Mel nodded, “sure, but please try my scrambled eggs before you head out!”

There was a knock on the door, “I’ll get it,” I mumbled as I watched the scene before me with a twinge of sadness in my heart— it was so nostalgic, mom laughing with Mel over something stupid, even Ray, at the stove, they were my family, and soon enough, in less than a year? I’d be dead to them. I opened the front door, “Oh!”

“Hi Cass! Did you forget I was picking you up for school today?”

I stared at Violet, yup, Cassandra had made plans, and yet again forgotten to tell me about them… good thing I had made an educated guess. “Yes, but that’s okay. Want to come in? I just have to grab my purse, mom and Ray are in the kitchen if you want to grab a coffee or say hi.”

“Hi Violet.”

I spun around, Mel had followed me from the kitchen, and she didn’t look impressed as she chomped down on the rest of her toast.

“Melanie. I got the package you delivered.”

Package?

“It’s in good hands, so maybe stop with the besmirching.”

“I would but I’ve seen Cass’ arm.”

“Ahhhh, so this is about the tattoo that Cassandra INSISTED she get?” Violet calmly replied, “look, I tried to talk her out of it, but she was pretty determined. Perhaps you don’t know your bestie as well as you thought you did.”

“Violet!” I hissed.

“Perhaps you should take care of yourself now,” Violet continued unphased, “I hear Steinheart is unimpressed, and searching for his daughter even now. Seeing as no one knows that we’re involved, we’re safe, but you? Tisk Tisk, Vincent went after her, he knows you were involved. I’d run and never look back.”

My mother chose that moment to walk into the front hall, “Ahhh Violet, pleasure to see you again! You taking Cass to school?”

“Yes, we were about to leave but Cass was going to grab her purse.”

“And here it is!” Ray came striding into the hall, and I suddenly felt hemmed in, claustrophobic because I had no control and these people weren’t helping, I took a few breaths in and out as Ray passed me my purse.

“Thanks Ray!” I finally made myself say.

“We should really be heading off. Don’t want to be late on our first official day of school!” Violet linked arms with me and pulled me out of the hallway, closing the door behind us. “You okay there Cass? You look a little green…”

“That was just a lot.” I mumbled as I followed Violet down to her car. “And you know it.”

“Sorry,” Violet got into her car, and I slid in next to her. “I didn’t mean to come across that way, it’s just, Mel dumped a problem on my family, and it’s kind of a lot to deal with. Viktor is still dealing with it, although Mark is helping him out now.”

I contemplated telling Violet about everything Mel had told me but decided that was probably a bad idea, so I didn’t, instead, I turned on her radio, which blared out old jazz tunes. Figured, Violet had always struck me as a classic type of girl.

“So— same dress as yesterday?”

“Oh, yeah. I fell asleep in the hallways when I got home last night, and Mel called me. She wanted to grab coffee, but then we got talking and we stayed out all night, so I didn’t really have time to change.” I looked down at the white dress, it was cute though, and perhaps a little too summery for the first official day of classes, but it was too late to go back now.

“No worries, I was just curious.”

We spent the rest of the drive in silence, listening to old jazz, but the drive was only ten minutes, and the closer we got to the school the more cars I noticed, all heading the same way we were. I was shocked that by the time we reached the brick wall that was around Acroft we were actually stuck in a line of cars all waiting to turn into the school. I stared out the window of Violet’s sedan as we finally pulled through the gate and headed up the drive. The entire first parking lot was full, and there were people everywhere, so many people. I didn’t know which way to look. We inched our way through the pedestrians to the second parking lot, which was almost full as well— the sedan like a pebble in a sea of neon haired humans. When we finally parked, Irene waded her way to us through the crowd.

“There you two are!” She shouted over the hum and buzz of the students. “I thought you’d never get here!” Irene hooked arms with Violet and I and pulled us through the maze of people. I felt short in this crowd, comparatively, completely trusting that Irene and Violet had a clue where we were headed. When Irene finally stopped tugging us, I realized she had brought us to an empty fountain in the quad, which she quickly climbed and helped Violet climb before reaching her hand out to me, “come on, you can see more from here!” I took Irene’s outstretched hand and she pulled me up, into the empty fountain. We stood, the three of us in the upper bowl of the three tiered fountain, over the heads of all the students.

“And what happens if they turn on the fountain?” I tried to shout above the noise of students chattering and car motors.

“Then we get soaked, silly.” Irene rolled her eyes.

The view from here was spectacular, I could see all the way down the drive to the gate, where cars were arriving and leaving, and people were walking up the hill… so many students, I’d had no idea Acroft High was so populated and popular. I spotted Annabelle arriving with two older people, both blonde with brown eyes, they looked kind, they must be her parents. Annabelle hugged them and disappeared into the crowd. I’d have to tell Cassandra about her at some point. We probably would have stood in the bowl till after the bell, but professor Flimheart, who I didn’t notice at first, was heading towards the fountain and shouting at us, pointing his finger and wagging it. “Um guys?”

“I see him, Cass. Time to go!” Irene jumped down the tiers of the fountain as if she was playing hopscotch, Violet following closely behind. It took me a little bit more time than Violet or Irene, and Flimheart was so close on my tail, I was sure he was going to catch me, but luckily the fountain had other ideas, springing to life right as Flimheart reached out to grab my arm. I jumped backwards, screaming bloody murder, because I was wearing white, and we all know what happens to think white material when wet. I moved into the thick of the throng of students and weaved my way to the school building as quickly as I could, not even checking to see if Flimheart had gotten doused.

Violet and Irene were waiting in the lobby of our building, laughing. “Welcome to your first day!” Violet chucked. Yes, the first day of my last year, here’s hoping I didn’t start the school year with detention.

15 The Covenant

Cassandra and I had come to an uneasy agreement, or at least, I felt it was uneasy. Why? Glad you asked. I was uneasy because she got my evenings and most of the weekends, while I only got to ‘come out’ and ‘play’ when there was school. The other part of the agreement was that I got to finish out my school year before Lucas ‘took’ me, as if I wanted to know what that meant. I spent my days learning, reading, and trying to act like I knew what was going on in my life, when in reality I had no clue what Irene or Violet were talking about most of the time— which sucked. If Cassandra and I hadn’t agreed to not spy on one another, then perhaps I’d even have an inkling of what was going on. Cassandra assured me that this secrecy would pay off in the end and would save me from actually dying from the curse she had inadvertently placed on my family. I sighed. The only good thing about being out of the house and allowing Cassandra so much face time was that I didn’t have to spend too much time with Ray or my mom, who was rapidly becoming a balloon as her pregnancy moved along. One good fact? She was having a son, not a daughter, so the curse would end with me.

The world Cassandra had lived in was drastically different from our own and she had constant questions about everything, from clothing, texting, to slang and even how to use a microwave. I had very few questions for Cassandra besides, what did you put me in, and where the hell did you take me last night? I would wake up often in strange clothing, in unfamiliar places, lying on the ground, and feeling like I’d just been hit by a bus, my head pounding, my stomach growling… Cassandra assured me it was helping her formulate her plan to keep me from dying but I wasn’t so sure, what did partying this hard have to do with making a plan to save my life or rid her of the curse over our family? I’d asked once, and Cassandra told me that it was about making the right friends who could help save me, or whatever. Violet and her husband Viktor Worthington were some of those friends, apparently. Violet and Viktor’s family owned a club downtown called Pumanara— where it seemed she’d been taking me once I let her take control of my body.

“You know it’s my body right?” Was my constant refrain when I’d see a tattoo appear on my body, or a new piercing, “and I don’t even want to talk about the clothes you put me in.”

“Actually, you’re the copy, so technically it’s my body.” Was the constant reply Cassandra threw back at me.

As weeks turned into months, I began to lose patience and faith that Cassandra really did have a plan, that she was just living it up until it was D-day and was going to let me die. I felt more and more like a stranger in my own skin. It was becoming Cassandra’s body, and less mine. The whole reason I had asked Lucas to bring back this version of ‘me’ was to learn more about the curse, and why or how Cassandra could love a monster like the devil. I still, months later had no clue why she’d picked him, and how she was going to save me. It was my mom’s due date soon, and already we’d hit the eve of the day I was to be joined in ‘matrimony’ to Lucas. Cassandra and Lucas had decided it was best if we had the ceremony, then I finished school and then we left on this ‘honeymoon’ of sorts. As for Annabelle,Cassandra assured me the one way to help her was to follow the plan, that and she didn’t seem too worried about Mark going through with ‘taking her’ anytime soon, since he was fighting against his instincts to do so— feeling paranoid about taking another human life, even if it meant he would stop getting headaches and feeling ill because of resisting the mark he’d put on her.

The one good thing about my arrangement with Cassandra was that I could sleep, and not have to deal with nasty hangovers or feeling sleep deprived, like all the other peeps who partied. I was alert and ready for each new day of classes and even though I was a transfer student I was getting top marks in all of professor Flimheart’s classes, even though since the first official day of classes I wasn’t his favorite student, considering the fountain had soaked him clean through.

“You would all do well to learn from Ms. Pirot’s example.” He would often remark after tests or handing in of papers. If only Professor Flimheart knew the truth… he’d no doubt be appalled, though a part of me believed he suspected things weren’t on the up and up, by passive comments or certain looks he’d throw my way every now and then.

I had learned how to master a telepathic conversation with Cassandra, so that we could communicate whenever I wanted to talk to her, or when I was at home, and not having to look like I was talking to myself… cause, yikes. That was not cool. Cassandra would pass on tidbits to me that she thought were important, like factoids about who was related to who— how Violet was really her niece through marriage, or how Sebastian one of her nephews had been sent off to train with the eldest Steinhearts who no one had really ever seen, but were finally going to be starting at Acroft in the fall next year. Cassandra was ever intrigued by the Worthingtons and Steinhearts, convinced that there were multiple secrets to be unearthed, and I kept reminding her of her promise to Pierre, to stay away from Marcus and some dude named Silvaneous… who apparently was either pure evil or massively manipulative, or both? I wasn’t quite sure, because Cassandra always sounded like a raving lunatic when his name came up.

The nice thing about someone passing you tidbits of information is that you learn a lot, especially if you know the right questions to ask. I learned a lot about vampires through Cassandra’s investment into spying on or prying information from others. Melanie, my bestie, had disappeared into the nethers, but not before leaving me a number she could be reached at, but only under pain of death. Tom had disappeared too, and I was assuming he had a great many more contacts in the underworld of the supernatural belly than Mels did. I found myself praying that both of them would stay hidden and stay safe. The last thing I needed was to find out my bestie and her boyfriend had also lost their lives. No one else needed to die.

I’d called Mel, only once with the number she’d left, she hadn’t realized that she’d answered, but the conversation I had picked up on the other end was terrifying.

“Miss Melanie.”

“Mister Pierre.”

“Your part in this story is over, I have done everything in my power to make sure you are not implicated but my master,”

“Vincent?”

“Yes, Vincent— he has a telepathic bond with his twin, he knows you were involved. I am trying to keep him pacified. It is all part of the plan, Marissa must not end up with someone not of Silvaneous choosing.”

“Sir?”

“If I convince Lord Vincent that his sister has fled because of her fights with him, I might be able to break their bond-”

Melanie gasped.

“I know, it is a horrible thing to do, but it is the only way to make Marcus believe that Vincent is lying.”

“But the only way to do that is to convince-”

“Convince Vincent that she hates him? Yes. Now, I have Tom waiting for you. I’ve made sure Carl has sent Tristan and Alice over to distract Lord Vincent so he isn’t even aware that his pet werewolf is gone. Go now, and don’t look back. We all know what happens to those who look back.”

“They turn into pillars of salt.”

“Yes. It’s almost time, now RUN.” Pierre’s voice faded as I heard Mel running, but the shoulder ‘run’ reverberated through wherever Mel was running, and then the call had dropped.

I hadn’t tried to call Mel again, and what I had heard puzzled and confused me, and it also scared me. I’d been keeping detailed notes in my red journal, trying to organize who was related to who— what I knew about Pure blood vampires, shapeshifters, Fae and werewolves, but sometimes it hurt my brain trying to sort it all out. All I knew was that vampires, had once been human, but they had stolen the fruit from the tree of life, and been cursed by God to yes, live forever, but also a half life, living off the lives of others, through blood— because blood was the life force of humans, and once a thief, always a thief. That part made sense, sort of. Then there was the Fallen, they had once been angels, who had chosen Lucifer’s side, and fallen from heaven to earth— they slowly became pure evil and hating humanity, gave in to their darker sides. Werewolves were something I had yet to understand— I hadn’t been able to trace their origin story, but Fae were supposed to be beings of light, children of the angels before the fallen had rebelled against God. After the war, all angels had been either stationed on earth waiting for the end times or had been sent back to heaven, and their light had been taken out of the Fae still on earth, although they still had shapeshifting abilities, hence the shapeshifters, who were technically Fae, but not all Fae were able to shapeshift, and had other powers, some even still able to call on light, and shape it with their being, but it wasn’t a pure light, it was diluted. For as long as there have been legends and myths, there have been stories about the Fae, and how they lived in an alternate dimension where, when the views of the world were at its thinnest humans could stray through and stay or visit— these Fae were described as beings of pure light, and a part of me wondered if those were the Fae that still possessed angelic powers. There were of course many other types of supernaturals, but the main ones who went to Acroft were vampires, shapeshifters, and Fae. Werewolves had their own classes at night, and the only other thing I discovered was that there always had to be a guard at Acroft— a Fallen guard. Not that this information would do me any good if Cassandra’s plan didn’t work.

Today was Saturday, my mom and Ray had gone on a babymoon to Hawaii so no one was going to notice if I went missing in the next few weeks. Mitzi I’d sent to stay with Irene, who’d fallen in love with her the few times she had come to visit. I missed her dearly as did Cassandra, but I knew it was for the best. Mom and Ray would be too busy with a new baby and being upset that I had gone missing to worry about my poor little cat. I wrote one more entry into my red journal and put it back into its hidey-hole. God willing, if I survived all this, I’d come back for it one day.

“Alright Cassandra, I’m ready.”

“Good morning lovely. What did I miss?”

“Nothing.” I pushed off my chair and walked toward my full-length mirror, Cassandra loved looking at herself, and I knew if I didn’t walk over to the mirror she would never let it go.

“How boring your little life is, all this ‘nothing.’ You really should learn to live a little.”

I rolled my eyes, what did ‘live a little,’ mean to Cassandra? “Oh like you?” I gestured to the tattoos and piercings that had become increasingly harder to hide from my mother.

“I’m going to ignore that.” I could almost see Cassandra rolling her eyes, even though she wasn’t in control of my body.

There were so many things I wanted to say to Cassandra, like ‘thanks’ for keeping Lucas out of my house, away from my parents and out of my head… but I knew she’d just take it all as flattery and then not hear the sincerity of my heart, so I didn’t.

“Are you ready? Tonight is the night.” Cassandra sang in a high voice. I should have never introduced her to Imagine Dragons… “for all the sinners and the saints…”

“And you’re the sinner and I’m the saint?”

“You better believe it. Now, I do believe we’re supposed to switch places?”

“If we must.”

Today I would marry Lucas, tomorrow I’d prepare for finals and then I’d finish out my last few weeks of school, only to disappear after graduation. I’d already moved the majority of my things to Saint Mary’s, or Cassandra had— that underground place gave me the creeps. I shivered, did I really have to go through with this?

“Seriously? Must we have the same conversation, over and over and over? The only way out is through— and you can’t go through without this marriage piece.”

There was a knock on the door, who was that? I wasn’t expecting anyone…

“Cass, stop dilly dallying. It’s time.”

“And your plan?”

“Firmly in place.”

“Yes, the plan you still haven’t told me about.”

“Honestly, it’s better that you don’t know. Now are you ready? I have to get us ready for a wedding, and you’re wasting time. You should be focused on the wedding, not worrying about whether I have a plan. Then we’ll deal with the taking.”

Ah yes, I now knew what that was, the ‘taking’ quite literally, the taking of my virginity, and maybe impregnating me with some demon spawn— that was if I was ‘lucky.’ I grimaced, and the girl in the mirror, who I didn’t even recognize grimaced too.

“Cassandra!”

“Alright. Geez.” I retreated into myself while the original Cassandra climbed out and took center stage. “Patience never killed anyone you know.”

“That’s not true.” Was the last thing I heard before I fully tucked away into the backseat or void of my own consciousness.

---

With Cass finally out of the way, I ran down the hallway and opened the door. “Sorry about that Violet! I had to make sure Cass was actually taken care of.”

I could barely see Violet from behind the dress bag she was carrying. “That’s okay.”

“Can I help?”

Violet passed a few things to me, a shoe box, a makeup kit, a few bags full of hair styling products and she followed me in with the giant dress bag. “Okay, I think that’s everything.”

“Violet, this is crazy.” I said again for what felt like the thousandth time.

“No Cassandra, you dying for no reason is more crazy. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it another ‘thousand’ times.” I followed Violet into my room where she put the dress down, “Now, hair and makeup first, then we put this dress on you.” Violet shooed me into the kitchen where she set things up on the island, and pulled out a metal canteen, “drink up.”

I sighed, but obeyed Violet, now much more used to the feeling of the thick goop going down my throat. Cass would be horrified if she knew. I tried to push that out of my head. Only a few more hurdles— the wedding, the taking, the honeymoon, and then we got to the hard part. Just nine to ten more months of lies. “Is Marissa safe?” I asked once again, feeling like an idiot, but needing to make sure that my daughter was alive and well, even though Marcus was an idiot. It still felt like some kind of sick joke, all the pieces of information that had fallen into place as I had asked questions and dug deeper into Steinheart’s history. Initially I had just been curious, but as things unfolded, I had this queasy feeling sink into me- then I had met, well- bumped into Vincent in the street, and I had known… God, I had known, he was my son, and that somehow he and his sister, Marissa had survived the war- in a way that time had been altered, and they were so young, so young- and motherless… Vincent was angry and Marissa? My heart lurched.

“Yes, Marissa is safe, you’ll see her soon I promise. Mark made sure that Mel and Tom got out okay, and-”

“And my son hates his sister,” I was still angry with Pierre for doing that, but I understood why he had. In doing so he had made Vincent’s testimony unreliable, and saved Melanie and possibly Tom’s life… “and my other children?”

“Oh Aunty Cassandra.” Violet murmured as she played with my hair, “there is going to be a war because of your children, we’re sitting on the edge of it, can you feel it?”

I shuddered, I could, but I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t. I looked over at Violet, it was still strange to hear her call me, auntie, but I suppose, since I was Marcus’ mate, and she was married to Juliette’s son, she was. I blinked slowly. I had a family, a family my love, Marcus, or perhaps his father, Silvaneous- had been twisting to his will for centuries. A shiver went up my spine for my vampire family, just as I now felt thinking about my marriage to Lucas. In a few hours he would marry me, one last time- and then when we were in Istanbul he would take me and if the plan worked… it had to work.

“Auntie?”

“Yes, Violet?”

“Do you really think you’ll break free of him?”

I sighed and closed my eyes letting myself fall into the island kitchen chair. “I did love him once.” God, perhaps Pierre was right, perhaps I was a whore. For I had loved Marcus, and I had loved Lucifer… and my human husband, each differently, each with all my heart and now- they were saying I was the mother of three species of supernaturals. How was I to know this was going to happen? How could I have predicted this? Could I have stopped any of it? Marcus tortured my human children, breeding them with all manner of monsters until he had created a new race, werewolves– but to his dismay he could not control them and their bite was lethal to him and his kind. Fitting somehow. My mother was the mother of all- how I wished I could ask her how she dealt with this kind of heartache. Perhaps if my plan failed, I would. When I faced her, finally free of this curse, I’d ask her.

“I know.” I barely heard Violet’s reply. “Mother knows you’re alive, you know, she’s furious.”

I nodded. There was nothing I could do about that now.

“She blames you for breaking uncle Marcus’ heart.”

And I had. I had broken him. I wished I hadn’t. “Let’s get this over with.” I whispered. Onward- that was the only direction I could look now; marrying Lucas, the taking and then… then hopefully answers in Istanbul.

Sighing, Violet pulled open her make up bag and plugged in a hair iron. “Okay,”

Violet primped and preemed me, while neither of us spoke. I kept my eyes shut, I couldn’t bear to look at her, to see whether she was angry at me for all of it, or if she pitied me for what I was about to go through. I sat still, thinking of the planted memory, the one I hadn’t had before, of the man who looked so much like my son, but not my son who approached me in the cave. It confounded me, but I knew it was important. I had to somehow get this memory to someone who cared, but who? “Have you been able to find out anything else about the twins’ mother?”

“There, your hair is perfect,”

“Thank you for doing this Violet.”

“You’re welcome.”

I took Violet’s silence on the subject to mean that she didn’t want to talk to me about the woman who had been implanted with mine and Marcus’ babies. Fair enough, it was bizarre enough that somehow my babies had been frozen in time for millennia only to be born now- my babies were teenagers… I stuffed back a sob that came from somewhere deep within my being. Cass was right, I had never really lived, but she was also so wrong. I put my hands over my stomach where I remembered first feeling their little butterfly movements within me, when I had first known that I was carrying Marus’ children. I had never held them as babies, never smelt their sweet heads, or watched as their small eyes first opened to the bright world around them- I had missed so much. And I had also lived much more than Cass would ever understand, I was a mother, a wife, a daughter, I had seen the world as one, lived amongst the angels… yes, she was so right and so wrong.

Violet cleared her throat after a few minutes and her soft voice in the silent house sounded much louder than it probably was. “Viktor did a lot of digging, digging I might add that could send him and our family into a world of trouble.” She paused, and I could feel her hands shaking on my face as she continued to work on my make up. “The rumor, not face, please keep in mind- is that the vampire who first married Marcus resembled you in every regard, but her personality was unpleasant and she was vain and arrogant. If this rumor is to be believed, she made Marcus tire of her and so worried she was to lose him, that she seduced him one last time and then told him that she was pregnant. Of course, she was lying, but then something strange happened, or so says the midwife who delivered the babies.”

“Oh?”

“She was told by this wife that she went back to her room after one of their festivals and there was a box on the bed. She thought it was a gift from Marcus so she opened it. The gift was this beautiful pendant, which she immediately put on. Rumor says that as soon as she put on the pendant two glowing lights emerged from the oval hanging around her neck and she thought it was merely magic, but then the lights floated away from the pendant and disappeared into her abdomen… nine months later she gave birth to the twins.

How interesting.

“She went insane apparently, rambling on and on about the Pangea and a bright light? None of the information really made sense, but as soon as she told me, the midwife went into hiding— scared for her life.”

I had always known that someone had stolen my babies from my womb, but I hadn’t known how, “sounds like magic of the oldest degree.”

“Sounds like angelic Fae magic, if you ask me.” Violet muttered, “okay. Open your eyes and take a look.”

I opened my eyes and looked into the mirror that Violet was holding up. My hair was half up and half down, in waves trailing down my back, with a simple few roses creating a headband or crown. My makeup was also simple, just smoothing out and evening my alabaster tone, with black eyeliner, mascara and red lips and blush, I looked like that one fairytale character, Snow White. I smiled, and turned my head a few times to get the full effect. “It’s perfect.”

Violet and I went into my room where Violet had hung the giant garment bag with my wedding dress. I shivered as she unzipped the bag and pulled the giant white dress out. It was a simple wedding gown, no added decorations, just a strapless sweetheart necked dress that laced up behind me, and belled out so there was a long train of chiffon. Violet unlaced the back and loosened it so I could step into the dress.

“Once this is on, that’s it.” I took a deep breath and pulled off my nightie. “I can’t believe this will be the last time my family has to suffer.”

“Let’s make sure we make it count then,” Violet firmly replied.

I stepped into the dress and Violet laced me in, I stared at my reflection in the wardrobe mirror, yes, Cass was going to be so angry at me. Once my dress was on tight enough, Violet helped put on my shoes. “Alright, I’m ready.” I whispered.

“No, you aren’t.” Violet took my arm with the Steinheart tattoo, “Lucas will kill you if we don’t hide this for the time being. Take this, it’s from Juliette.” Violet passed me a glove, it almost looked translucent, “it is almost like a second skin. Juliette calls them her little wonders. Try it.”

I put the glove on and it was the weirdest thing but it changed to my skin tone and almost became invisible, hiding my tattoo.

“Now you’re ready.”

Right as if on cue there was a knock at the door. “Well,” suddenly I was nervous.

“Come on Cassandra,” Violet gathered up my train, “let’s go get you married to a monster.” Violet followed me out into the hallway, and all the way to the front door.

I pulled open the door, “Mark!”

Mark stared at me, really looked at me and something clicked in his eyes, “wait. You’re not Cass. What? How…”

Oh shit, oh-

“Mo-?”

I quickly cut him off, not wanting Mark to let Violet know he was my son. “So, you really are more intuitive than your brother.”

“Wait, Topher didn’t rec-”

I shook my head. “Your brother only sees what he wants to see.”

For a moment there was complete silence.

“How long?”

“Oh, I’ve been here since your father marked Cass.”

“Then why couldn’t I sense you before now?”

“That my dear, is a long story, but to sum up, I wasn’t controlling this body whenever you saw me, and I made Violet promise to not tell you.”

“Violet knew?” Mark sounded insulted.

“Oh hi!” Violet waved from behind me. “Hate to sound insensitive but we really should get Cassandra to your father before he comes looking for us.”

“Oh, right. Also, Hi Violet!” Mark waved.

“Please, for the love of God, don’t tell your dad I was here.”

“Got it.” Mark nodded, and took my arm, “let’s go get you married Cassandra.”

Violet gathered the train and followed us out the door, locking it securely behind us, Mark made sure I didn’t trip and Violet made sure all of myself and the dress got into the limo.

“I’ll be waiting for you when you get back,” Violet whispered before closing the limo door and giving the limo a light tap.

“Drive,” Mark signaled the driver as we pulled away from the curb and entered traffic. “I’m a little shocked.” Mark glanced at me again, “I suppose this is some grand secret of father’s? No, don’t answer that.”

“I never thought I would meet my son.” I whispered, taking his hand.

“I never thought I would meet you, mother.”

I had so many things running through my head, questions I wanted to ask, about Topher, about Lucifer, about how time had gone wrong or been locked away, but instead I just held his hand and watched him cry, as he told me about Annabelle, which thanks to Cass, I already knew about.

“I have a plan son, but you’re going to have to help me, trust me— and keep secrets from both your father and your brother. Can you do that?”

Mark shuddered, “yes. If you can save her from dying, I’ll do anything.”

“I have a plan, Violet has been helping me, but I don’t have any guarantee it will work. Go talk to Viktor Worthington, he will fill you in on our plan— but trust me in this son, if you betray me, I will kill you.”

“I understand.” Mark nodded, as the limo slowed to a stop. “Very well, mother. You have my word.”

The limo door opened and Topher was there ready to lend me a hand out of the limo. “You’re late.” He hissed.

“My apologies.” Mark muttered, “it’s my fault.”

The three of us walked through the cemetery along the rough hewn stone path, I wanted to stop and pay respects to Cass’ great grandmother who had guaranteed the end of this curse by keeping Mariah safe and not telling her to tell Cass to just give in and continue the curse, but Christopher hooked my arm and redirected us toward St. Mary’s Cathedral.

“Father has been waiting a very long time for you,” Mark whispered. “And I never thought I would get to meet you.”

“Stop talking pittle pattle Mark. You’re starting to sound as old as you are.” Topher hissed. “Look, Dean Melrose has been asking if I would return to Acroft as the guard in the Fall, the oldest Steinheart’s start school and they’re a tad anxious about their safety. I’m taking him up on his offer. You can be the one to do Father’s bidding for a change.”

We’d finally reached the massive wooden doors to the Cathedral, I felt my heart fluttering like a little bird, and realized how nervous I was— that my fluttering heart was not just my emotions, but also all the hopes I’d pinned on my plan working.

“Fine. Why don’t you take over now? I’ll let Dean Melrose know.”

Topher let out a sigh and almost snapped something in reply, but his head snapped to attention, some sound from inside the church beckoning him in. “Make sure she doesn’t trip.” He hissed at Mark, and then disappeared into the church.

“What are we waiting for?” I asked as the door slammed shut. My voice squeaked more than I thought it would.

“Are you ready?” Mark offered his arm, which I gratefully took.

“Yes.”

Mark nodded and pushed in the doors, and walked into the candle lit space. I couldn’t see much of the interior of the Cathedral from where we stood, especially since it was super overcast today.

“Whatever happens Mama, I’m here for you.” Mark patted my arm and we began to walk forward, each step taking us deeper into the recesses of the ancient church, which was flooded with two things— one being candlelight and the other, Nephilim, their black wings beating the air softly, causing the dust to rise and descend creating a sparkling effect in the orange glow of the room.

We moved up the aisle and toward where Lucas stood clothed in white, casting a soft glow of his own, his wings a resplendent white, his eyes bright dazzling blue as they fixed on me. I tried not to gasp, he had appeared just as I had asked, because it was how he looked when I had first met him. It was hard not to fall for a man who looked like that, and for a moment I was myself, fully again, the woman who had fallen in love and carried his children– the woman who had submitted herself to being loved in only the way the devil could have. I shivered, and reminded myself as I walked toward him, that yes, he was the devil. I had to remember that too, not just the good of him, but the darkest parts, the twisted parts that had left me ripped open and bloodied and ultimately dead. It was his fault all the women in my line had been cursed by God. But oh, it was hard to look away from his blue eyes… I noticed vaguely that Topher had taken a stand on one side of Lucas and that the priest stood waiting on the other side of him. The beating of the wings of the Nephillum gathered in the broken pews matched my heartbeat, telling me that I would have always ended up here, that this was my destiny— I had always been the one to end this curse, the one I had initiated in the beginning. I couldn’t wait to find those prophetic scrolls and see how I would be able to help destroy the devil once and for all. As my hand was put into Lucas’ I went against the overwhelming urge to give up and give in, I was a lover yes, but a fighter too.

“If you will do me the honor,” the priest began, “of joining me around the table of rites, Lord Lucas, Lady Cassandra, Mark, and Christopher, then we shall begin.”

The fluttering of the wings stopped as if they had been waiting for this moment, I could hear only my breath as Lucas took my hands from Mark and Mark joined the circle made up of himself, his father, Topher and the priest who faced the assembled Nephilim.

“As you know, this woman has been destined for this man, Lucas Farrelli, since the beginning of time.”

There was a thrashing of wings from behind us in agreement. How many of them were here? And how many others were also my children through my line? I dared not look.

“And now she is ready again for her Lord and Master. I stand here to witness this ceremony for the last time, and yet for this version of Cassandra it is the first time.”

I shivered, yes it was the last time, ever.

The priest took a white candle and lit it, handing it to Mark, “we call on the wind.” A gust of wind filled the Cathedral. “The water,” he lit another candle and handed this one to Christopher, as rain sprinkled down, in the church. “The earth,” he passed me a candle and nothing happened, I was almost glad. “And lastly fire,” he passed a candle to Lucas and for a moment the whole room was engulfed in flame and yet did not burn up. “For wind and water witness and testify that this union is true—while the earth meets the fire and becomes one with him forever in the bonds of matrimony. Until death do us part.”

“Amen.” They echoed in a deep unison as all the Nephilim agreed with the priest, their voices echoing on the church’s walls on its roof and reverberating with the wind from their wings.

Until death do us part. Yes— and this time it would be permanent, no longer would he be able to kill any more members of my family.

“And now we light the unity candle, to signify our agreement.” The priest put a fat purple candle in the middle of the table and we all lit it together with our candles. “To finish this ceremony we give some of our life’s blood to seal it forever.” The priest pulled out a chalice and a small knife as each one of us held out our arms and some blood dripped into the chalice. “By blood we live, by blood, we have sworn, you are two— that will become one. Thank you wind, we thank you water, we dismiss you earth and put you out, fire until we again need your approval in another matter.” The priest paused. “It is done.”

I felt the priest’s fear and trepidation, that he had rushed through the rite, but even rushed, it had been done correctly. Lucas sipped from the chalice, his eyes glued to me, as he passed me the goblet I took a sip, knowing what it meant, passing it to our witnesses, our sons. Would he ever tell Christopher who I was? Or would I eventually tell him? I contemplated this, as Lucas moved the table of rites out of the way and pulled me into his arms. I tried not to stiffen as he lifted my chin. I could see it in his eyes that he wanted to take me then and there, and I felt my body beg me to let him, warmth flooding me in areas I hadn’t even thought about in a long time. My cheeks went bright red, this was the last thing I wanted to think about, especially with my two sons flanking either side of their father. Lucas’ eyes twinkled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, and he ran a long white finger down my chin, my neck and let his fingers hover just over the sweet heart neckline of my dress.

“Thank you.” Lucas nodded at the priest, who had packed up his things and had already started out of the Cathedral, obviously not wanting to wait around any longer than necessary— which is how I felt. “And now my dear, you are finally mine again.” He brought his bright red lips down to mine and brushed them softly. I knew at that moment I was in for a world of trouble, my mind and body and heart were all on different pages. And I hated myself for wanting him to take me right then and there.

I trembled as I took a deep breath, “yes, I am.” I willed the warmth in my body to fade, somewhat unsuccessfully. “And you remember our agreement?”

Lucas scowled, as he stood me back on my feet and slowly released me. “Yes, I remember,” he nodded at Mark who joined him at his side, “take Cassandra back to her house, and begin preparations for our journey.”

“And our charge?”

“Yes, make preparations for that too.” Lucas called Topher to his side and then the two of them as well as all the Nephilim filling the space filed into the underground passage below the church. “Until we meet again, my love.” Lucifer whispered as he pulled the secret hatch close behind him, leaving Mark and I in the church alone.

“Come on mom, let’s get you out of here.”

I followed Mark out of the church, grateful to be outside again, my body still aching, craving Lucas and his roving hands. “I haven’t seen that many Nephilim in one space, ever.” I whispered into the late afternoon air willing myself to not get stuck on the taking.

“No, and you won’t again for some time.” Mark murmured, gathering up the back of my train so we could walk faster. “It’s illegal, you know. The gathering of more than ten Nephilim.”

“Then why does your father risk it?”

“He risks it for you— and because…”

“War is coming… yes I know.”

We made our way out of the cemetery, where the limo was still waiting. “Look mom, whatever you’re planning, it better work. We’ll need you when the war comes.”

I feigned surprised, but I supposed I should have known Mark would be the more tender of the twins. “I’m shocked Mark, who’s side are you on?”

“Mother, please. Have you heard of the power of the two?”

“No, why?”

Mark opened the limo door for me and scooped my dress into the limo after me. “Father isn’t the only one planning something. It is no coincidence that I am a twin and that there are rare occurrences of twins on both the vampire side and on our side. There are rumors of a prophecy that could combine the power of both twins and turn them into a weapon, but all I have is hearsay. I’d need to see the original scrolls, and no one knows where they are…”

But I did. They had to be hidden with the prophecy about me. “Mark, how do you feel about joining your father and I on a cruise in the Mediterranean?”

“Why?”

“Because the prophecies are hidden in scrolls in Istanbul, and I didn’t know how I was going to find them, but if you come, I’ll keep your Father busy, and you’ll be able to search for the scrolls.”

Mark made a face. Yes, I would keep Lucas busy, and I would hate it and I would love it. I sighed,

“Please?”

“Anything for you mother.”

“And what was your father talking about, your charge?”

“We have Marissa underground, but we can’t keep her there, she’s fifteen you know— everyone assumed the twins were much younger, but it appears Marcus lied about their age to keep them at home and out of Acroft for a few extra years. I’ve been tutoring her, but-”

“She’s in love with Sebastian.” Violet had told me. I still couldn’t believe my babies were old enough to fall in love. I had just learned that they still existed in this world.

“Yes, and since she’ll be at Acroft High, she’ll need a better place to commute from then here.”

“My- she is marrying Sebastian Worthington?” It was more of a statement than a question, but Mark answered it anyway.

“Tomorrow.”

I shivered, so much was happening, so much that I didn’t yet have time to understand.

“I know it’s a lot, mom.”

“Does your father know that they-” I paused, realizing I wasn’t sure that I wanted Mark to know that Vincent and Marissa were his and Topher’s half siblings- that could get tricky really fast. It was bad enough that Lucas had told the boys I had once been involved with Marcus, they didn’t need another reason to hate me. “I want to meet her. Can you make that happen?”

Mark looked at me a little funny, like he knew I was hiding something. “Sure, I guess. Come back tonight and I will sneak you in.”

“Good. Go now, find Viktor, he’ll tell you the rest of the plan.”

Mark nodded, and closed the limo door, sending me off back to Cass’ house.

“Alright Cass, I’m almost done. I have to talk to Violet, and run an errand, but then you get this body back for a few more weeks, then I’ll come back and spare you from the taking.

The limo pulled up to the curb more quickly then I would have thought possible. I didn’t have anyone to help me right now, so I grabbed my train and walked like a white puff ball up to the front door. I hadn’t even knocked yet and Violet was already opening the door. “Sorry, I was keeping watch, I wasn’t sure Mark was going to actually send you back.”

“Mark is a good kid.” I muttered as Violet helped me inside and then down the hall into Cass’ room. I stood still while Violet helped me out of the giant dress and I grabbed a pair of leggings and tank top to pull on. “Okay— so here’s the plan. Mark is on board, I’ve sent him to talk to Viktor. If he betrays us, I’ve told him I’ll kill him, but I’m not worried. I have to meet him tonight at the church.”

“No way— it’s too risky.”

“Violet, I have to. I have to see my daughter before she marries Sebastian.” I made a face… my daughter was going to, going to.. No, I wouldn’t think about my daughter having sex. I would picture her as a little girl.. I shuddered, realizing that probably what my mother had thought when I had grown up.

“So, they’re actually going through with it.” Violet’s voice broke through my brooding thoughts.

“As far as I am aware, it’s happening tomorrow.” I took a deep breath. “I want to see her before I am encumbered by a demon spawn.”

“Fair enough. Okay, what did you want me to do?”

I glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand, it was much later than I thought it was, “um, can you find out from Mark when he wants me to meet him?”

“And what are you going to do?”

“Eat something, I’m starving.”

“Enjoy it while you can.” Violet sighed, “I hear it sucks not being able to eat real food anymore after you’re turned.”

“Great.” I rolled my eyes as Violet pulled out her cell phone and dialed Mark. I left her in my room and made my way to the kitchen, this was one of the things I really liked about modernity, kitchens. Fridges. Freezers. Cheese… grilled cheese sandwiches and waffles and… yeah, I liked food. I pulled open the fridge, Ray and Mariah had left on Friday morning and were going to be gone for two and a half weeks, by which time I would be gone.

16 It is all History

I closed my eyes, and took in a deep breath. The air here in Istanbul was a wash with scents and sounds- I could sense the richness of the history in the market stalls and the ancient bazaars. Over thousands of years worth of history that I had never gotten to live. I opened my eyes and stared off the balcony into a bright blue sky, the sun shining down on me through the hot midday. I had sent Mark on his mission, and for the first time since arriving in the eye of the needle, would I be alone with Lucas. I was hesitant to be alone with him, since we had yet to complete the taking. Indeed Lucas had been very patient with me this time, allowing me to take my time, and let him know when I was ready- it would be the last time, he reminded me, after all. And he wanted to savour it. I looked over my shoulder into our lavish hotel room, through the open bachony doors where my husband, the devil or angel of light, lay sprawled across the bed, wearing light blue jeans and a white tee shirt. His hair blonde, his eyes blue- no wings, you might have mistaken him for some ordinary human man… but I knew better. My heart shuddered, and as if he knew I was looking at him, he looked up at me and smiled. My knees knocked together under the light linen dress I was wearing. I reminded myself again, this was all part of the plan. I shivered under his gaze.

“Should we go out tonight?” he asked lazily from the bed.

I knew this was his way of asking me if I was finally ready. I shrugged, “What would you like to do?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Come here and find out.” He purred.

I hesitated one last moment, looking out again at the sun and clouds and the sounds of the city, before I realized there were arms around me. I gasped. I always forgot he could move so quickly. “Or we can wait.” He murmured, kissing my hair, and nibbling on my ear. He was so warm, and the nearness of him in this already humid air made my body feel more, more warmth in my core.

“I suppose, I have made you wait long enough.” I whispered.

He spun me to face him, his eyes showing surprise. “Really?”

I swallowed hard and nodded, “yes, really.”

“Are you certain,” he asked as he tilted my chin and kissed my neck, “that you won’t change your mind?”

Oh, God, I was already wishing I hadn’t said anything.

His kisses lingered on my skin, lower and lower, until he had hit the fabric of the neck line of my dress. “I think-” his voice said in a husky tone, “we should find our way inside.

I couldn’t have agreed more, who knew what people looking up would see if we remained here in the open air of the balcony. He picked me up and hurled us both onto the bed, where I found myself looking up at him. In this form, he was innocent and youthful and charming and I wished he had stayed this way forever- and yet, I knew why he hadn’t. He had betrayed God, he had betrayed humanity, and he had torn heaven in two when he started his war. My parents had hated him in a way I would only be able to guess the magnitude of… and I hated him, most of the time. I hadn’t until after I’d known what he had done to me- after I had found out I was doomed to die, after God had cursed me. Yet, I had so many questions, questions about the war, about the time lock that either he or Silvaneous had enacted. I wanted to ask so many things to this sweet innocent face- but I knew the wolf that lay beneath these blue eyes and tanned skin. I sighed and he took that as my impatience for the delay.

“Are you truly ready?” He murmured and as he looked at me and I studied the lines of his face, I could see the faces of my sons in him and it was both beautiful and so sad.

“Yes, my love.” I whispered wishing I didn’t mean those three words with all my heart. How could one both love and hate at the same time?

“You are so beautiful.”

And I realized he truly meant it, with his twisted love and lust and desire for me- there was a reason all his children were also mine, from the women of my line. He refused to mark another. His twisted heart somehow allowed one ‘good’ thing to survive from when he truly was an angel of light… love. “Love, love always prevails.” The thought of the locket in the painting of the church in St. Mary’s drifted unbidden to my mind… What being of light could defeat this paragon of evil?

“And fate had brought us together one last time.”

Fate? Or Prophecy? I prayed silently to the God who had cursed me, prayed that he would allow my son to find the scrolls and the monks in black who might be able to help him decipher the codes within. Perhaps God would turn his face to me and finally show me peace. “Forgive me.” I mumbled, not meaning to speak out loud, a desperate plea to God, but the words escaped my lips anyway.

“Forgive you?” Lucifer’s bright blue eyes scanned my face, “darling, there is nothing to forgive. I should be asking you to forgive me.”

I tried not to look surprised. He had never apologized to me before, not while I was alive and definitely not to the women he had killed in my line. I reached up to touch his face, “forgive you?” I tried to sound like I was genuine but I felt anger cascading in my heart.

“I suppose now that it comes down to it, now that I shall be truly alone after you are gone, I am sorry for what I did to you all those years ago. I am sorry I-I am what I am. That what I am has cost you your family, your God, your life.”

I choked back a sob. Yes, they had been my family, and God had been my God, and I was a daughter of Eve. I wished he was being honest, and while I knew a part of him meant it, there was also a part of him that would always justify what he had done.

Lucas wiped my tears away, and stared deep into my eyes- looking for hate, looking for deception- but I didn’t have the energy to feel anything other than sadness.

“I forgive you.” It was a half truth, but he wouldn’t know that. My plan was still set, and this was part of the plan. I, or Cass rather, had to die, and he needed to be the reason.

“Let me make it up to you,” his voice murmured as with one hand he lifted my dress to my hips, and with the other he gently slid my legs apart. I knew what was coming, but I still moaned when his fingers touched my skin, my sadness disappearing as something else more dangerous and primal filled me. It had been so long since I had felt his or anyone’s touch that my back arched and my dress slid further up revealing my torso and the bottom of my breasts. I had known this was coming, not when but that it was, so I had forgone wearing the undergarments that I had packed away, leaving room for just this… his hands on me and in me.

He watched me, as his fingers moved in me, pushing, reaching, digging, and then stilling when I moaned. He watched my face as I was being undone and he smiled, his wings emerging from behind him, huge and white, angel wings.

“And the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were beautiful, and they took whichever of them they found beautiful and they became one with them…” his voice seemed to hum as he recited the ancient words of the ancient text. “If this generation only knew how literal that was.” His eyes glowed as he growled and his fingers found my core, my body went taut, every sensitive nerve in me screaming with pleasure as he laughed, my body his servant. My fingers grabbed at the waistband of his jeans, and he swatted them away as his eyes bored into me, his lips open just enough to sigh with desire.

“Please, plea-” I moaned and his other hand slid my legs open further. “No, no more teas-” I gritted my teeth as another wave rolled over me, my body undulating with his touch. “I need you.”

He pulled back from me and moved his head to my stomach where he began kissing me as his fingers kept moving and I could barely breathe. Up and up and up my body his mouth moved as his fingers pressed harder in my being. I gasped as he bit my breast and then with his free hand removed my dress from me entirely, I could hear the beautiful fabric ripping with his touch and it being tossed on the ground.

I lay before him completely naked and unashamed.

“Yes, there you are.” He bit my other breast, and I could feel my body sweating under him. “Ther you are, just as you once were, when we met. This- I wish this was as you always were.” He kissed the space between my breasts and paused if perhaps only to listen to my heart thundering in my chest. Again I grasped at the waistband of his jeans, only this time he didn’t swat my hand away- he let me undo the button and zipper and I felt him kick off his pants, felt him on me, and I knew, knew he had been waiting all day for this moment, he too having not worn anything to keep him from me, to keep him from this.

I should have been horrified. Cass certainly was when she thought of losing her virginity to this ‘monster,’ and he was indeed a monster of the highest degree, but unlike this body, unlike Cass, I had slept with this man before, in my original skin, and I remembered even now how things had felt, and I was not afraid. I was ashamed. Ashamed that I wanted him in me so desperately that I thought I would break.

As suddenly as he’d started he stopped, his fingers pulled out of me and he sat up on his knees. He looked down at me, and I knew he could see the begging in my eyes. He pulled his tee shirt off and let me look at him, finally as naked as I was, and he didn’t move as I took him in. I saw him as he once was, a tanned youth, muscled and perfect, his white wings creating this dome around us, making me feel like I was completely alone in Eden with him once more, and I and we could be anything. I had forgotten what that felt like, not having your future written out for you. Who would we have been if he had just been an angel and not a fallen angel, cursed by God? Who would we have become? Would Marcus have come and fought for me? What kind of life would I have lived if I hadn’t died giving birth to Nephillim twins.

I let my fingers draw down his chiseled arms, as I pondered. I drew circles on his chest and abs with my nails, until my hands got so low they grazed his v. I paused, any lower and I would be touching him like he had been me. I looked up into his eyes, and found they were misted over with desire. He caught my hand before I could go any lower and pinned both my arms beside me with his wrists and only then did he dive into me. He thrust into my wetness and I screamed his name, over and over until I couldn’t feel anything but him and me exploding the universe.

I tore at his chest, and bit his lips and his body anywhere my teeth could find. I gasped for air but found it was difficult to breathe when passion threw itself into me again and again like the pounding of the waves on the shore. He stayed in me until I thought I would die then and there, my body quivering and shaking like a tree before it was felled by the wind, and when he finally pulled out of me, I collapsed on the bed and saw stars circling above, but I knew that was only the beginning. I saw him disappear from view as he slid lower and his knees hit the ground, and I should have guessed what was coming next but I shook as his head disappeared between my legs and his tongue and mouth were on me and in me, his hands locked around my upper thighs. I locked my legs around his shoulders squeezing and breaking as only one would when one’s lover is tasting you. I pulled on his blonde curls and yanked out feathers from his wings where I could reach them, and the bed beneath me shuddered as my body reacted to him, my voice echoing in the enormous room screaming his name- hoping no one from the street heard me and burst into the room thinking I was being murdered- now that would be embarrassing…

He pulled away only after I felt like I couldn’t climax anymore but left his left hand in me when he came out for air and then slid back up on top of me and kissed my mouth hard. He let the whole weight of his body push me further into the mattress below me, he was hard and blood from where I had scratched and bit him was wet and sticky on my skin, mingling with my sweat. I couldn’t breathe.

“More?” He asked, I wanted to say no- but I felt my head nod, and he removed his hand and plunged back into me, slower this time watching my face as he moved in and slowly pulled back but stayed in me- I quivered, I didn’t want to admit how much I was enjoying the taking, but my body was laid bare before him, and he could see and feel me in ways I didn’t want to admit. He was the sword and I was his sheath… He knew I would never want or ask to stop, not if he looked like this. “Tell me you love me.” He purred as he pressed hard into me.

Gasping I grabbed his face with both my hands, my sharp nails scratching him. “I-” blood from the scratches dripped on me. “I-” I couldn’t speak, I felt my body climax and I hissed. He knew I wouldn’t say it, or couldn’t say it, but my body did, or because my body knew him and responded this way.

“Mine. You’re mine.” He brought his mouth to mine while taking one of my hands and bringing it to where we were joined and pressed his hand over mine leaving them there as he thrust over and over as if to say, see, we are one- no one else can have you, ever.

Marcus’ face came to my mind. I felt ill. I had truly loved Marcus. I tried to push his dark curls and deep green eyes from my mind, how he touched me, how he adored me- how he looked at me when we made love, and how he loved to watch me as he moved in me. How he felt and sounded when I had told him that I was going to bare his children and he had first felt them move in me, the joy, the happiness the pure love shining out of him…I shoved him from my mind, trying hard not to break as another man, the devil, let loose his sperm in me. I shuttered and Lucas pulled out, as if sensing I was done for now. Panting, he kissed the top of my head, and headed for the bathroom, leaving me alone and shuddering on the bed. I lay there, my emotions and nerves strung out as I listened to the shower run, and then Lucas voice crossed the hotel room,

“I’m going to run out and grab us some food. You look exhausted, rest and we’ll resume when I get back.” The hotel room door opened and then shut, only once I knew he was gone did I sit up.

“Rest and we’ll resume?” I shivered. I would break if we continued the way we had started, there would be none of Cass left to take back to North America.

I caught sight of myself in the mirror and tried not to scream. I was covered in white feathers, blood, sweat and my hair looked like birds lived in it. My pupils were so big I looked like a cat that was high on catnip. “Damn you, Lucifer.” I hissed. I would have collapsed back onto the bed but Lucifer had left the shower running for me, and I could smell the sweat so I swung my legs over the side of the bed and that’s when I heard a knock on the hotel room door. “Shit.”

I tried to ignore the knock, but after a brief pause the knocking resumed. I pushed myself off the mattress, my legs felt like jello as I tried to find balance and not collapse backward onto the mess that was the bed.

“I’m coming!” I shouted. Did Lucas order room service? Or did someone think I was dying? Or had Lucas forgotten the room key? He could literally have smashed the door or done something ‘magical,’ even though I knew he was trying to avoid that, to avoid detection by the council. It was why we had flown here on a plane and not used his dark powers to pop up here in Istanbul. The reason that he appeared the way he did- a disguise to remain hidden from detection… I made it to the closet and pulled it open. I pulled on one of the white fluffy robes that were hanging within.

There was another pounding knock, damn who was at the door?

“One second, I’m coming! I’m coming!!” Every step reminded me that I had given myself fully, to the devil, and that it was very likely in nine months I’d be dead. My jellowy legs propelled me to the door, where I looked out the peep hole and saw Mark pacing. I tossed a wary look behind me at the destruction Lucas and I had left in our wake, hoping Mark wouldn’t judge me too harshly. I opened the door and Mark breezed in.

“Mom-” he paused and coughed. “Woah. Mom. Um.” Mark looked at the floor, and then glanced at me, his face going white as he surveyed my hair and face, then he said something I wasn’t expecting, “is this what I’m going to do to Annabelle?”

My heart hurt seeing his worry and regret. “Oh Mark.” How I wished to take away his pain, to hold him in my arms like he was a little boy- but I had been denied that life, the life of a mom, and even as I reached for him, I knew it wouldn’t have gone well. He would have pushed me away. “Yes.” I said, softly, not with a rude tone, just factual, “and she will love you,” I bit my lip, “and she will hate you.”

He nodded, and glanced at the open bathroom door where steam now billowed out of the shower. “Go have a shower mom. You look like, and no offence, you look like hell.”

I chuckled and closed the hotel door, “you sure?” Mark nodded, and I gave his arm a squeeze as I went past him into the bathroom where the shower was running. I closed myself in and took a deep breath of the steam, and I remembered running through the mists in Eden before there was such a thing as rain. I felt my strength returning to me and marched myself into the shower where I tried quickly but vehemently to wash every bit every taste and scent of Lucas off of me. Now, it was time to discover what Mark had found out about the scrolls before Lucas came back and got suspicious. It hadn’t been easy to get Lucas to agree to let Mark come, and I didn’t want to give him a reason to doubt my intentions on this trip. I turned off the shower and inhaled the last bit of steam before I roughly toweled myself off, and saw a green cotton dress that Lucas had left hanging for me on the back of the bathroom door. I pulled the dress on and towel dried my long brown hair as I opened the door into the cooler hotel room, where Mark was waiting.

The coolness of the room welcomed me, and I found Mark sitting in a now clean hotel room, on one of the two chairs on the balcony. I tried not to look too shocked that the room was so tidied, and in my embarrassment I really hoped it wasn’t Mark that cleaned the room as I went to join him on the balcony. “Hi,” I muttered as I slipped into the balcony chair. “I hope you didn’t feel you needed to clean the room…”

Mark took me in from head to toe and released a breath he had been holding. “Hi mom. You finally look more like yourself.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, son.”

Mark looked back out at the city. “I didn’t clean the room, I called down to the front desk and had them send up a maid while you were in the shower. On the down side she probably thinks I was the one who slept with you… on the plus side I don’t have to stare at the chaos you and dad left in your wake… or smell it.” He made a face as if to say it had really reeked in the room after our lovemaking.

My face went bright red. “Thanks Mark.” I paused, “did you learn anything?”

Mark cautiously looked back at the hotel room door. “Do you know how long we have before father is back?”

I shook my head. “He said he was going to go get food. I don’t know where he went or how much time we have, so speak quickly.”

“Very well.” Mark’s mouth was set in a firm line. “There was once a tribe of scribes and zealots whose work it was to write out the Torah and other prophetic writings. They were very devout and when they were threatened by the Romans they withdrew into the wilderness withdrawing from humanity and civilization to keep themselves and their texts safe and pure. Eventually they hid their texts and scrolls in the rocks and caves in the wilderness while they themselves were hunted down and killed- in my research I have yet to find out if there are any more of these monks in black… or where they hid their scrolls.”

I felt a wave of frustration and concern fill me. Had the seer sent me on an impossible mission. “Mark, we need those scrolls and we need to find at least one of these monks in black, alive…”

“Mother, are you sure that’s what the seer told you?”

“Yes, and if he said it, it must be possible. The seers are incapable of lying. So, look harder, we only have this one opportunity- we can not fail. You know as well as I do, war is coming, and we must be as armed with as much truth as possible to defeat your father, once and for all.”

Mark slouched in his chair, the weight of this and Annabelle sitting heavy on him. “I am my father’s son. There is a way, but mother- it would mean I have to use my powers, and it would risk father being discovered in the city.”

I shivered. “Lucas wouldn’t be very happy, so if you must use your Nephillim powers, be very careful. We have only a few more days here before we head to the cruise around the Mediterranean and then home, and by that time we will be out of time.”

“There is a way- if you can make yourself leave the bedroom that is…”

“I resent that implication, son,” I looked away from Mark out at the city, “but I am listening.”

“If father was in the air and not on the ground then he would not be able to sense me using my powers.”

I was instantly intrigued. “Tell me more.”

If you can get him to agree to one of those hot air balloon tours, like the ones I saw advertised in the lobby, it might be long enough for me to discover what I need to know. The only downside is that the tours go right over the area that the scrolls are rumored to be hidden in… but if you were able to distract father, as you seem so good at, I might be able to get the task done.”

I didn’t like the tone Mark used when talking about me and his father but I nodded. “I will suggest it as soon as he is back, perhaps we can get him out into the bazaar and markets tonight, and he might be so distracted that he will agree more easily.” I stood and walked to the railing looking down over the city, I stared at the sea of people going about their lives, and wished I could disappear into that crowd. As I watched them hurry about I spotted Lucas making his way through the sea of humans, a few brown paper bags in his arms. “He’s back.” I didn’t feel like I needed to tell Mark the ‘who’ I was referring to.

“Shall I leave?”

“No.” No, I didn’t want to be left alone with Lucas again, until necessary. “Stay here.” I walked past my son, his hand gently grabbed my arm as I did, and we looked at each other in a way that I knew was love. Yes, I thought as I looked down at him, I loved my son, despite the fact that he was a fallen angel, he was a part of me. He would always have a spot in my heart no matter where he ended up or how evil he eventually became. War indeed was coming and his father had plans for him and his brother… they were indeed to be his fathers weapons somehow, and I feared so would my vampire children, something Topher had said about the power of two. I walked through the door and into the hotel room, my legs not allowing themselves to give in to the thought of being ravished again by Lucas. I had to stay strong. I crossed the room in what seemed very few steps and opened to the door Lucas standing there with brown bags giving off scents that smelled so tantalizing and delicious that my stomach growled.

Lucas looked a little taken aback that I had opened the door right to him. “Hello darling.” I purred, putting on the charm. “I hope you don’t mind, I asked Mark to join us for supper.”

Tension entered Lucas’ face as he met my eyes and I knew what he was thinking about, the room. He glanced over my shoulder and relaxed as he saw the room was clean and had no left over carnage from our tousle earlier. “How?”

“I called the front desk, they sent a maid, while I showered. Then I was bored so I called Mark and we sat and chatted while waiting for you.”

“And what did you talk about?” Lucas asked suspiciously.

I laughed, but my heart felt fear. I pulled Lucas into the room and kissed him, “you, silly.” I hoped it pacified him, and it did seem to, because he entered the room and smiled at me.

“Very well.”

I closed the door and stood very still, wondering if I could push my luck. “I was thinking, it might be nice to take in the evening air tonight in the bazaars and marketplaces.”

Lucas headed toward the balcony where Mark was waiting, he cast a glance over his shoulder at me as he paused. “I told you it’s dangerous out there.”

“But with two strong Nephilim men guarding me, what could go wrong?” I crossed the room to him and let my hand sit on his arm, knowing he couldn’t resist my touch. “I will be as safe as safe could be.”

Lucas grunted, “very well.” He kissed the top of my head, “now come, let’s eat before this food gets cold.”

I followed Lucas out onto the balcony where Mark was waiting, trying not to look too excited. My plan was in motion. Now, to convince him to get into a hot air balloon, but first- food.

Mark had found another chair and a little table that had been in the corner of the balcony. He and Lucas had moved the table and chairs so the three of us could sit around it and enjoy the food he had brought back with him. He opened the paper bags and began pulling out take out dishes full of various kebabs and lahmacun, baklava and borek… the table was so full of food that I thought it might collapse under the weight of the dishes. I folded myself into the chair between Lucas and Mark and we all shared a look of ravenous hunger before we dug into the mounds of Turkish delicacies.

There were no words as we ate, just the sounds of the city below and the view of the sun setting in the ancient sky. Occasionally we’d pause and all sigh with varying sounds of contentment and delight at the food we consumed. It was reminiscent, honestly, of a meal between Cass and her mother and Ray. I felt guilt hit me hard. Cass was going to die. Her soul was fragile, and I had known for some time that she wasn’t going to survive the transition. She had been sulking since graduation, and when it had been time for me to leave with Lucas she had silently fled into the depths of her consciousness. She didn’t know what I knew, didn’t understand war… but she did understand family. I reminded myself I would have to mourn her passing once my plan had succeeded.

I glanced at Lucas and Mark. They laughed as they both patted their full stomachs and leaned back in their chairs, and I smiled. I promised myself I would remember this purely human, simple innocent moment. Cass and Violet were constantly telling me to take in each moment, to live, because life was not simply the history but the moments we lived. The moments we love. Right now, I couldn’t agree more.

Lucas looked at me and then at Mark as if wondering if I had outed myself as his mother, in his absence. For some reason he didn’t want the boys to know, and I had a feeling he would be furious that Mark had figured it out on his own. I looked up at the sky and grinned at the night sky settling over us. Stars twinkled overhead and my heart again thought of this heart shaped locket that supposedly contained a being of light.

“If you want to go to the bazaars, let’s go.” Lucas pulled himself up off the chair and began to put away the empty take out containers. “Mark, will you accompany us?”

“I’d love nothing better.”

We all looked out at the city, beautiful during the day but even more spectacular at night. The lights glowing from below, a soft breeze wafting the scent of spices up to my face. I breathed in the mystery and magic of the city. This was true living history. Lucas handed me a green shawl that matched my dress and I wrapped it around my head and body as I had seen many other women of this city do, then the three of us headed out into the night.

17 Airy Affair

I don’t know what time it was when we had returned from the Grand Bazaar the night before, but I dreamed of spices and silk and fresh fruits and glistening trinkets… I wandered through halls with domed ceilings and tiled frescos. For the first time in a long time, I felt truly like I fit in somewhere that time had not had the ability to completely ravage– perhaps it was as close to my past as I would be able to get, in this life. I stirred in my sleep, aware that Lucifer was watching me, indeed I could feel the light of the new day spilling in through the open balcony and hear the sounds of early morning life down below on the busy streets, but I wished to stay in this near consciousness for a few more minutes. I replayed the evening in my mind, knowing Lucas was waiting for me to get up.

I had declined Lucas’ request to resume where we had left off before our dinner with Mark, when we had returned with Mark from our outing yesterday, claiming to be both full of food and tired, so we had merely collapsed into bed and I had tried very convincingly to fall asleep. Lucas tired from the powers he was using to conceal himself as a normal human being, and without me to stimulate him had quickly fallen asleep. I waited until I was sure he was snoring and would not hear me move before I slipped from the bed, my blue silk neglige sticking to me in the humid heat of the room. I went to my suitcase and opened the secret compartment where Violet had stored some of her blood for me. I sighed as I went out onto the balcony where the air was cooler, and sat down on one of the iron chairs. Once a month, since I had been awoken and made this plan with Violet and Juliette, once a month I downed a vial of her blood. I hadn’t wanted to bring any with me, it was risky for several reasons, as Viktor and I had pointed out, and yet Juliette and Violet had won, and so I had brought one vial of it with me. Their reasoning, as I looked at the vial, sitting there under the stars in the ancient city of Istanbul did make sense. The first reason being that I hadn’t had any since the wedding, and yes, tomorrow, or rather today that was a month ago, and the second, which made me slightly ill, was that if or rather when the taking happened, I should have this blood in my system, so that the child that would be conceived would also have this vampire blood in its veins– this last child I carried would be a hybrid… which I realized made me just as cruel as Marcus had become, with his experiments on my human children. I put a hand on my abdomen. No movement. I would know if I yet carried his seed… I had known instantly the first time, I had felt their flutter the day after Lucas and I had first made love. If this child was to be a hybrid, now was the time to drink the vial.

I had glanced over my shoulder to where Lucas lay slumbering, I could hear his snores from out here, and I knew this would be my only chance to drink it without detection. If I was caught, I wasn’t sure what Lucas would do to me. I pulled off the glove from Juliette and stared at the rose and thorn tattoo it had been hiding. I stroked it as if it was somehow alive, like the pureblood tattoos on the faces of my friends, as if it was somehow connected to Marcus… as if he could hear me from thousands and thousands of miles away.

“Oh my love.” Unbidden, salty tears washed down my face, dripping onto the tattoo. “I hate your father for lying to me that you had died. Someday he will pay for his treachery, he will pay for stealing our children, he will pay for sending me into the waiting arms of this monster, he will pay.” I blinked, and for a moment it almost appeared like the tattoo twisted and writhed in response, that yes, I was right- Silvaneous would indeed pay. I wiped my tears away and shook my head, it was late, I was exhausted from both the travel, and Lucas… I was seeing things. That must be it, seeing things, after all I remembered Roger putting this tattoo onto my arm. It wasn’t alive. It was my heart on my sleeve. “I’m doing this for you.” I opened the vial and quickly dumped its contents down my throat. “I’m doing this for us.”

I took the vial and walking over to the edge of the balcony I aimed far into the distance and chucked the vial as far as I could manage, but hopefully far enough that even if Lucas detected its scent in the morning that he would think that it was some junkie who lived in the city and not something I had smuggled with me here, on our ‘honeymoon.’ I gave one last look at the tattoo on my arm before pulling on the glove and watching it disappear as if it didn’t exist. Instantly I felt the same sense of nausea that I always felt the first few minutes after drinking Violet’s blood. I grit my teeth and threw my hand over my mouth, I had to keep it down. It was imperative that it stay in my system, I wouldn’t be back until I was supposed to have another dose, and we were still figuring out how to get that or any other doses to me once I was underground with Lucas.

The nausea faded and the high kicked in. I contemplated jumping off the balcony into the street below, but could almost hear Violet’s words of warning in my head- ‘you are human, let’s not break you until you can’t be broken.’ I sighed, I really wanted to jump, but decided that would be a poor waste of my time, contemplated waking up Lucas for round two, but then he would have smelled the vampire blood in me, so instead I grabbed the room key and after making sure Lucas was indeed asleep, I left. I made my way over to where Mark’s room was and knocked on his door.

I heard a grumble and then almost like a thump before Mark opened his door, clad in his dark denim jeans and a white tee shirt. He was indeed his father’s son. “Mom, what the hell are you doing out here,” he looked both ways down the hallway, “by yourself?” I giggled, and that’s when he fully looked at me, and his eyes went huge. “What are you wearing?”

Oops. I had forgotten to grab clothes.

Mark grabbed me and pulled me into his room, shutting us in. The dim light from a lamp on his nightstand showed that his room was very similar to the one I was in with Lucas. I turned to tell him so, but a tee shirt hit me in the face instead. I rolled my eyes, but pulled it on, it was far too big on me, almost dresslike, so I grabbed the tie from the robe in his open wardrobe and tied it around my waist.

“There, better, son?”

Mark sniffed the air around me and frowned, “you are high, aren’t you? Oh, my God- you’re high on vampire blood!”

I smiled. “You knew this was the plan, I’m not sure why you’re so surprised…”

Mark’s frown deepened, “and what happens if you get caught? What happens when dad wakes up and sees that you’re missing or finds out you came to my room tonight?”

I was bored, I knew I should care about the things Mark was talking about but the vampire blood made it seem like there were far more important things to do than stand here and talk about the consequences for something I had already done. “Look, Mark, if your father is really that upset that I came to your room, when he knows you’re my son, then he has bigger problems. I would never sleep with my son.”

Mark made a sound from behind me as if even suggesting incest made him want to vomit. “First of all, he doesn’t know that I know, and second of all, gross mom.” I flicked a look at him, he was visibly pale. “I know you don’t want to sleep with me,” he paused, “what do you want?”

What did I want… “I want to go out, explore, taste the world– be free…” I spun in my tee shirt dress, my arms raised, my vision slightly blurred. “And since your father is snoring back in our room I was hoping you’d take me.”

“Mom-”

“I know the risks.” I stopped spinning and took a calculated look at my son. “Mark, please, don’t make me beg. This might be the only time I get to travel before I die.”

“Die? You said your plan would work.” He was at my side immediately, his hands taking mine and looking like the scared little boy I’d never gotten to see.

“I’m being figurative.” I whispered, squeezing his hands hard, letting him know he was not alone. “I do have a plan.”

Mark sighed, “I just found you mom, and I want to get to know you– I can’t lose you so soon. None of us get this opportunity.” I watched Mark and knew what he meant, none of my Nephilim children had gotten the opportunity to have had times with their mothers, they had all been deprived.

“I know.”

“You realize if this works, we’ll be breaking about fifty council laws and God knows what else– saving scarlet women?”

“I know.” God did I know. If I survived, if I could save Annabelle and how many others, it would be penance for the women in my line I wasn’t able to save.

“Do you think they will be okay?”

I blinked slowly, “Who son?”

Mark’s eyes drifted down to my abdomen, and I instantly knew what he meant, I tried not to squirm. “We’d be creating a whole different kind of species…”

Yes, I had thought about that. What would this new breed of fallen be like– half human, half nephilim, part vampire… I shook the thought away. “We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

Mark walked to the hotel room door, “I should get you back to dad before he realizes you’re missing.”

“Mark please?”

Mark looked out the open door into the dimly lit hallway, “you’re sure he was fast asleep?”

“Yes. I promise.”

Mark sighed, nodded at me to put on the sandals by the door, tossed a scarf at me as he walked me out of the room. “Fine,” he murmured, “we’ll go for a walk, but that’s it- then you go back to dad and I will go to sleep, tomorrow is going to be a big day for all of us.”

I tried to contain my excitement as I wrapped the blue silk scarf I had bought him earlier around my head and body. I nodded, “Wise decision.” I whispered as we walked down the quiet hallway and down the narrow stairs leading to the hotel lobby. There were very few people around, a clerk at the desk nodded at us as we dipped out into the street but I hadn’t seen any other visitors or hotel guests up and about. I didn’t know what time it was, only that I was wide awake and my body could feel everything, the smells of the city, the breeze blowing down the street. I craved music and laughter and possibly some kind of strong drink.

Mark led us as we wandered wordlessly through the night’s calmed streets, his hands tensed at his sides as if ready to defend me at a moment’s notice, occasionally glancing back at me to make sure I was still following him. I walked slower, looking up at the night’s sky, glancing into darkened windows, looking down pitch black streets… We wound our way into a leisure district– here there were restaurants open and more of a nightlife. The city seemed to speak to me here, and I paused feeling the power of some ancient force sifting through the ground. I glanced up at Mark, to see if he had noticed but he seemed more focused on staying in the shadows than he did the sensation of power. The last time I had felt that was when I had been alive, when I had been around Silvaneous or Marcus. I shook my high brain, this meant something didn’t it? What was it Violet or was it Irene said about the high council? They met in Istanbul… a group of men stumbled out of the bar in front of me, laughing. I could smell the alcohol on their breath. I took a deep breath and pulled the silk more over my face. I couldn’t figure out why I was suddenly so afraid, until one of them bumped into me as they filed into the street and began dispersing in a bunch of different ways, calling out goodnight to one another. The man who bumped into me, put his hands on my shoulders, to steady himself,

“I’m so sorry. Excuse me.”

He was a vampire, but he wasn’t just any vampire.

“Have a good night.” His green eyes framed by his dark brown curls looked down at me jovially before he patted my shoulders one last time and grinned at me, “Yes, you should have a very good night.” As if he could tell I was beautiful even under the silk.

I nodded, and he turned and I watched Marucs Steinheart stagger down the street humming, I stood still not daring to move lest he recognize me or my scent. Marcus looked back only once, and waved at me before disappearing around the bend in the road. Once Marcus disappeared from view I let out the breath I had been holding. I trembled. He was alive, all this time we, Juliette and I had talked about him or Violet had talked about him. I had believed it but I hadn’t seen my love in over six thousand years. It was one thing to talk about him, an entirely different thing to see him and feel his hands on my shoulders. Did he have an inkling who he had just touched? What would he have done if he had known it was me? I realized after a minute he must have thought I was a vampire, with Violet’s pureblood still rushing through me and once I realized that I also started to worry that he might come back looking for me– the look he had given me had been more than just a glance and didn’t Violet say he collected beautiful women in a harem? I sprinted the direction I had last seen Mark, not even daring to look back, feeling the last of the vampire blood mingling with my own and my high starting to settle.

Mark was just around the opposite corner hiding in the shadows. I would have run right past him if he hadn’t snagged my arm and dragged me into the shadows with him, putting a finger over my mouth to be quiet. He nodded into the street and I saw why he had shushed me- Silvaneous was standing in the middle of the near empty road talking to Pierre. I willed my heart to calm down, if they found me here… Silvaneous would recognize me immediately so would Pierre and God only knew what they would do if they found Mark or Lucas here too.

“Pierre.” Hissed Silvaneous, “you MUST find my granddaughter. They are not the weapon they need to be on their own… they must be reunited. Vincent is coming along exactly as I wished, but he will need Marissa in the end.”

“But Lord Marcus explicitly demanded that she be-”

“No one is harming my granddaughter.”

“And the boy?” Pierre asked, his pale eyes glowing like werewolves eyes in the gleam of the moon.

“No one is hurting any of my grandchildren. I will need Marcus and Juliette too. She hates me now, yes– but she will hate me more if I kill her son. No, no harm will actually come to him, but there must be a threat of violence or there will be no fear, no obedience to our name. You see Pierre, it is not about the actual violence, and I am not afraid to go there if necessary. It is about the fear that gives you power.”

“Yes, master.” Pierre bowed.

“Now, get back to Marcus, best to think he is the one pulling the strings. I will go back to the council for now. No sense in alerting all the other covens I am still alive. There are things yet to put into motion. We need to flush HIM out.”

I didn’t have to hear his name to know who they were speaking about, it was Lucifer. I shuddered, what if Silvaneous found out he was here, right now?

“Yes,” Silvaneous turned and I swore he almost looked right at the shadow we were hiding in. “It is almost time.”

“Time, my Lord?”

“Go home, Pierre. If you fail me again, it will cost you your life. That is not a threat but a promise.” Silvaneous turned away from where we were hiding and I watched as his body dissipated into a mist and then that mist faded away until nothing was left of him. Neither I nor Mark moved until Pierre, who appeared unfazed that his master had literally disintegrated into nothing, also lumbered down the street and into another bar that was open down the way. We stayed there for what felt like an eternity but I knew Mark just wanted us to be safe.

Eventually Mark pulled me to my feet and we quickly walked back down empty streets until the hotel was looming in front of us. Mark stopped in his tracks and spun and looked at me, “It’s probably best we say nothing of what has happened here. Ever.”

I nodded. “I promise.” I heard my voice squeak. Mark stared at me for a moment as if he wasn’t quite sure he believed me, but something in my face must have convinced him because he turned on his heels and once again led us back into the hotel.

“You better pray hard that father didn’t notice you were missing.” Mark muttered half to himself, half to me. He leaned in close for a moment, taking a big sniff, “Sorry, just checking. You smell like yourself again. No use letting you back in there smelling like a vampire.”

I was internally really glad that the blood worked its way into my own so quickly and I really hoped he was still passed out and snoring too. There were too many things I’d have to lie about otherwise. We didn’t speak as we entered the empty hotel lobby, and made our way back up to our floor. Mark escorted me right back to my hotel room, taking back the scarf, the robe tie and his enormous tee shirt, making sure I was safely back in my room before he headed back to his own. I rolled my eyes, but also held my breath as I tip-toed back into the room and shut the door behind me. I didn’t start breathing normally again until I heard Lucas’ steady snore reverberating across the room. I slipped back into bed, curling up on my side and had fallen quickly asleep, dreaming of those green eyes and dark brown curly hair.

Now, I was very aware of the clock ticking in the room- I couldn’t fake sleeping much more, either. I yawned and stretched hoping that to Lucas it would appear that I was just waking up. I blinked a few times and once my eyes were open I realized that the sunlight was much brighter today, instantly knowing it was a left over gift of the vampire blood from the night before. I stared up into Lucas’ bright blue eyes. Yup, he was watching me alright.

“Sleep well?” I asked as calmly as I could.

“Yes. You?”

I had thought this through in my barely waking hours this morning, I had decided that it was possible that Lucas noticed I wasn’t in the bed, but not that I had left so I was going to tell a half truth. “It was alright. I woke up in the middle of the night and sat on the balcony. I thought about waking you, but I knew how tired you were and are and thought it best to let you sleep. I’m sorry if you woke up and I wasn’t beside you.” I reached up a hand and cupped his face gently. “If you did, I am sorry for causing any worry.”

Lucas leaned into my hand, “I am sorry you didn’t have good sleep, my love. I didn’t wake up once last night. This,” he gestured to his figure, “is sapping a lot of my power.”

I searched his eyes for any signal of deceit but found none. “I know.” I murmured. I sat up, and watched his face as his eyes took in the blue negligee I was wearing.

“We don’t have to go out today, you know.”

I laughed, as I patted his face and rolled out from beneath him sliding off the bed and heading to the bathroom. “But darling, you promised me adventure on this hot air balloon tour.” I closed the bathroom door behind me and locked it, knowing I probably closed it in his face. I couldn’t afford delays today, Mark needed us out of the way so he could use his powers.

On the other side of the door I could hear Lucas sigh. “Yes, my love. Of course.”

I made him wait while I fiddled with my hair and did human things like brush my teeth, put on make up, take a quick shower- until I could feel his impatience from the other side of the door, and I rolled my eyes, unlocking the door but not opening it, almost daring to see what he would do. I didn’t have to wait long. Lucas entered the bathroom leaving the door open, striding in naked and stepping into the shower gave me a wicked look, daring me to join him. Honestly, if I didn’t know we needed to be off the ground asap I probably would have, but I forced myself to ignore his manly prowess and walked myself out of the bathroom closing the door firmly behind me so I couldn’t stare at him as he bathed. I decided that it was probably best I was fully dressed before he exited the bathroom or we wouldn’t get very far. I listened to the shower run as I looked through the clothes I or rather Violet had helped me pack. “Something slutty,” I murmured to the empty room. I flipped through until I found this little green cotton number, some summer dress that reminded me of the forests I loved so much, and perhaps if I was honest, Marcus eyes. I stared at my reflection, watching my cheeks bloom in color as I thought of him. I sighed, I would need to forget him and his accidental touch if I was to get through today. I pulled out a pale pink head scarf and wound it around my body until I was sure Lucas would see I was serious about leaving our hotel room today. There was a knock on the door, and I went to open it, seeing not just the bus boy bring us our breakfast but also Mark, who nodded that he was heading out. Great. It was showtime and Lucas wasn’t even ready. I thanked the bus boy giving him a tip and nodded at Mark who then silently slid down the hallway and out of sight.

I closed the door of the room and cleared my throat, “darling, breakfast is here and you’ve been in that shower long enough to make me think you are even more vain than I am.” I hoped my words had landed, as I took off the lid of the breakfast tray and inhaled deeply of fresh fruit and some sort of freshly baked bread, and cups of tea or some hot spiced drink that smelt divine. I took a plate from the rolling cart and loaded up a plate and grabbing one of the cups of steaming liquid I made my way onto the balcony where I sat in the sun and ate the delicious food, not noticing that I had missed Lucifer’s dramatic naked entrance back into our room, until I looked over my shoulder and saw him preening in front of the full length closet mirror. Well, I was glad that I dined out here, he might have no shame, but he certainly wasn’t going to try to take me out on the balcony mid morning. “Lucas. Put some clothes on.” I hollered louder than I probably ought to, but I needed the man to find a sense of urgency. “I intend to make that mid morning hot air balloon tour- so don’t dawdle.” Were all men children when it came down to it? Honestly, I didn’t want to be his mother, I had enough teenage children of my own that I never got to be a mother to…

Lucas must have realized I was intent on following through with my wish to be air born for soon he was dressed and he even joined me on the balcony plate of food in hand. “I honestly don’t understand this desire to be up in some forsaken balloon when I could fly you up into the sky at any time.” He grumbled as he stuffed dates and apricots into his mouth.

I downed the last of my hot beverage, enjoying each flavor as it disappeared down my throat. “Yes, but darling,” I said sweetly as I could, “but not during the day, and definitely not here- over the oldest city in the world.”

Lucas hissed something I couldn’t hear, but I knew I’d made my point. We put our plates back on the rolling cart and left the hotel behind us, loading into a jeep that they had called for us and we headed toward the hot air balloon tours starting point. I just hoped we’d be in the sky before Mark used his powers.

---

Ever since I had ensured mother, Cassandra, safely back in her hotel room I hadn’t been able to sleep. I tossed and I turned, thinking about how close to being discovered we had been by Silvaneous Steinheart. I had been such a fool to let mother out of the hotel, but she had been so high on vampire blood that if I hadn’t made her walk, it would have taken all night to work through her system and father would definitely have noticed. Why was she willing to take such risks? I had just found her again. I would be damned if I lost her again just as quickly, which was the only reason I was okay with this plan in the first place. I had no great love of the vampires I was supposed to be patrolling, or love of how my species needed to propagate. I was in fact disgusted and disquieted by it all. I closed my eyes and thought about Annabelle, she was so angry at me for ignoring her at school- it would be a relief to be away from her in the fall once Topher replaced me at Acroft as the guard. My head pounded, as I thought of her and other parts of me ached as well. I grit my teeth and tried to wipe the memory of seeing my mother ravaged by my father, yet again. I hadn’t the heart to tell her how terrible she had looked, how half deranged she had appeared when she had first opened that door, or how I could smell her and my father’s scent so mingled in that room. I shuttered. I knew the risks of marking a woman. I had heard stories from Topher, my twin, but I had never seen it up close. Topher refused to mark someone. I hadn’t meant to, Annabelle had just gotten beneath my armor and now. Now, I refused to take her until I was sure mother had found a way to save her- even if it meant turning her into a creature I could never love. I sighed and sat up, eyeing the clock on my nightstand, it flashed eight in the morning at my sleep deprived eyes.

I slipped out of bed and decided I’d go for an early morning walk before I grabbed breakfast. I needed to clear my head after last night. Mother, she was keeping secrets from me- being just honest enough that I wouldn’t ask questions but still. I frowned. She had been alive at the beginning of the world, she was different from any human I had ever met, even in this frail human, Cass’, body she was something else. I could sense her presence, her age, even though she had been wasting away in the dark marble tower in Hell that had been created for my father. She had never truly lived. I pulled on a pair of joggers and a light blue tee and headed out the door. There weren’t really very many people out yet, and I nodded at the hotel clerk before heading out into the streets. I found myself making my way down the same route I had walked with Cassandra last night, looking at every shop I passed as if they could reveal where the entrance to the council was or give some clue to what we had witnessed last night. I paused and looked down an alleyway that I hadn’t noticed in the dark last night and saw much to my surprise a seer, on his knees praying to Allah or God or whoever it was that the seers prayed to. Finally, something was going my way. I glanced over my shoulders but didn’t see anyone noticing me as I hurried over to the man, in black.

“Forgive the intrusion to your prayers.” I bowed in respect for the old man.

He paused mid prayer, and I felt his sightless eyes calculating my worth as he tilted his head in a way that in a normal human would have made it snap. His long beard was at odds with his bald head and his tanned wrinkled skin looked ancient. “Hail Mark Farelli, and well met- if you can call a meeting with a Nephilim well met.”

“Oh sayer of truth, I come in peace.”

The seer in black shook as he laughed. “You come in peace?” His old features twisted into a frown. “I know who it is who travels with you.”

“One word of that will have the council descending on us and bring about certain death.” I pictured my mother, laying dead on the hotel room floor and I shuddered.

“Ahhh, so there is some goodness in you after all, son of the Devil, son of Eve.”

I glared at him, how dare he say these words so loudly and in such a place where he might be overheard.

“Do not worry. I will keep this information to myself. What is it you wish or seek, other than revenge for those who will never know their mother’s love?”

Revenge? What was this old man on about?

“You will see it when the time is right.” The seer paused. “You will find what you seek, go now and seek my brothers in the place where only the wild things roam.”

“Your brothers?”

“Do not you seek the monks clothed in black?”

I gasped. “The monks are seers?”

“Go now, you will need your powers in the end. You are not the only one seeking the prophecies.”

I would have asked more but the call to pray sounded and the seer dropped to his knees, face prostrate, and began to pray in a language I had never heard. I backed away slowly and headed back to the hotel where I asked guest services to send a tray of breakfast food up for my mother and father, knowing he would likely forget that his human wife would need to eat, or that he needed to eat to keep up his strength for the glamor over his appearance.

I myself went into the hotel restaurant and ordered a large breakfast of fruits and breads and Turkish coffee which really hit the spot. I waited for the breakfast cart that was to be sent up to my parents room and followed the bus boy, so that when my mother answered the door, for I was certain my father wouldn’t, I would be able to tell her I was leaving the hotel to start looking for answers. When she opened the door, she appeared distracted but at least she was clean, dressed, ready for the day and our plan. I nodded to her when she noticed me, that I was heading out and she nodded back– so I slipped down the hallway before the bus boy noticed me and back out of the hotel, hailing the first cab I could to take me to the edge of the city and then the desert.

---

Lucas and I didn’t speak in the jeep on our way to the hot air balloon tour launch site, but our driver talked incessantly pointing out sights and historic buildings, even popular tourist destinations. Lucas had instead of speaking to me, taken my hand and rubbed slow circles on my inner palm with his index finger. It had started to drive me mad by the time that we finally arrived at the launch site. I shot Lucas a look which was meant for him to stop teasing me, or baiting me- but when I met his eyes he just grinned innocently back at me as we exited the jeep and made our way to the little building where we would pay for our tour and be taken to our hot air balloon.

I waited for Lucas outside, watching couples and families as they, like me, wandered through littered baskets, the sound of hot air hissing up into massive balloons floating up above us in the sky. I watched the mothers with their children and my heart literally felt like it had been sliced to ribbons. I had never experienced heartache like this, heartache over my children that I had never gotten to raise, to give advice to– to explain the terrors and wonders of life, love and the joys of intimacy with another human. I had given up so much by my selfishness, my need to be satisfied– but also by my grief and pain.

“God, please. Let me survive this to atone for my sins.” For, there were many. A little girl with dark brown hair tied up in pigtails and wearing a blue dress ran past me giggling followed by a little boy in khaki pants and a white polo shirt.

“You’ll never get me, Simon!”

“Oh yes I will!” He hollered back at her.

My eyes followed them until they ran around the next basket, and a woman in a white dress with a green headscarf, who was almost out of breath, stopped beside me. “You haven’t seen my children have you?”

I pointed to the corner of the basket they had just rounded and she nodded, “thank you,” before she started off again, “children, you come back here at once! Trust me, your father is not going to be impressed if you don’t start behaving!”

Would I have been that mother? I wondered as she disappeared around the bend and I could hear giggling just barely as hot air wooshed into the balloon above me. I looked up again, astounded at the size of the balloon, and that’s when I heard her.

“Hello? Is it safe for me to come out?”

Ah yes, my mind had been so quiet lately I had almost forgotten that Cass was still buried in my subconsciousness, she had been hiding out since I’d disembarked from the plane in Istanbul, not wanting to be around for the taking.

“Hello darling.” I blinked, and I knew she could see where we were, see what I was seeing. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

I could sense Cass looking and appreciating what I was seeing but I felt her unspoken question as if she was stabbing my gut with a knife.

“Yes, the taking has happened.”

An almost sigh of relief went through my body as if she had somehow held onto tension that I had no control over. I felt a wave of annoyance.

“You know, it really isn’t that terrible.” I hissed.

“What isn’t terrible?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Wait- don’t tell me you enjoyed it.”

I sent Cass a mental picture from the night before, when Lucas and I had been entwined and not just a mental picture but the emotions and sensations that went along with it. I felt and heard her gasp in the back of my mind.

“I might not love him.” I said so quietly that even in my mind it was barely audible, “but being sex was always something I did enjoy.” To my downfall, was what I didn’t add into that thought. “I know what must be done and I am not afraid of doing my job.” I looked back towards the small building where I saw Lucas and another man exiting, I wandered back towards them, plastering a grin on my face. “All set?”

Lucas hooked elbows with me and nodded as we followed this man through the maze of hot air balloons until we came to a stop before a basket attached to this beautiful multicoloured balloon.

“This will be your balloon, Mister and Mrs George, and I will be your guide today.”

Mister and Mrs George? I shot Lucas a questioning glance, but he ignored me. Our guide brought a ladder over from one of the other baskets and gestured that we should climb on up. Lucas climbed up first and offered his hand to me, I suddenly realized I was more than a little afraid.

“Trust me dear, it will be fine. If the ladder can hold me, it will hold you.”

I shook myself, why was I afraid? I was Cassandra, daughter of Eve. It was only after I had stepped into the basket, I realized it wasn’t my fear, it was Cass’ fear.

Our guide climbed aboard, and began explaining the safety features of the balloon, pointing out emergency items, like a fire extinguisher and first aid kit and telling us about what to do if something should happen to the balloon, but I stopped listening as he prattled on. I am sure it was all very important, but I had to talk to Cass. I turned my gaze inward as I nodded and looked where I was supposed to be looking, but I wasn’t there. I just hoped Lucas didn’t notice that I was a vacant shell.

I had never really pulled myself this far inward while I was still in control of my, or Cass’ mortal body, but I also needed her to stop being so afraid and freaking out- she needed to trust me and to trust the plan. I pictured us sitting in a waiting room in my mind, and that’s exactly where I saw us when I looked inward. Cass jumped when she saw me, and looked terrified as she looked around at the couches I’d created, the low coffee table, the steaming mugs of coffee and the baklava piled on a beautiful tray.

“What, what have you done?” She whispered.

I had to admit it was stranger looking at her from this direction than it had even been to look at Mariah who was a spitting copy of me. I looked Cass up and down, she was me, but she was not me. The human who was Cass looked so young, too young to have these grown up types of experiences and circumstances thrust upon her, she also looked so fragile, like anything might break her. Was I looking at her consciousness or was I looking at her soul? Or perhaps I was looking at her actual person? I pursed my lips and then paused turning my hearing outward, no, I had time, the guide or pilot as he was calling himself, was still explaining the fine art of hot air ballooning.

“I decided, you and I should talk face to face.” I picked up the mug of coffee and inhaled deeply its tantalizing aroma. “Mmmm coffee, now coffee,” I saw looking back at Cass, “is something I really do love. Did you know it was once thought of as the drink of the gods?”

Cass said nothing, but twisted some of the fabric of the scarlet dress she was wearing around her fingers.

“Why are you still wearing that ridiculous dress?” I hissed.

Cass looked up at me and slowly dropped the fabric she had been fiddling with and turned her arm ever so slightly so I could see her inner forearm where there was a giant red handprint. I almost dropped my coffee as I gasped. I had never seen the physical mark, in fact– no one had. It was more metaphorical and supernatural than that, or so I had assumed. I had never been ‘marked.’ I had been the one to choose Lucifer, it was only after we had slept together that I had felt this thing on me that had warned all else to stay away, but by then it was too late. I had already doomed myself.

I put the coffee cup down and pushed myself up off the arm chair I was sitting on and forced myself to walk over to where Cass was. I gingerly sat next to her and took her arm, inspecting the mark that had started all this mess for this version of me.

“You don’t have one,” Cass said slowly, distracting me from staring at her mark. With her free hand Cass grabbed my arm, the same arm where she herself was marked, and we both looked down at it at the same time. She was right, but she was wrong… Where the mark should have existed my thorn and rose tattoo twisted and swirled as if it was alive.

I tried not to throw up, but unease and nausea filled me. Was this some kind of a joke? My mind telling me that I belonged to Marcus Steinheart? I blinked and dropped Cass’ arm, pushing away from her and standing– the waiting room now starting to feel as hot as my black marble tower in hell had felt for thousands of years. “I don’t understand.” Bile rose in my throat, as I stood with my back to her.

“You have changed.” I heard her scarlet dress swish as she came to stand in front of me.

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean.” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, not able to look at how weak and frail she was. I couldn’t have this conversation with her, not now… there was still so much to do.

“You fit into this world in a way I never have.” Cass continued, “my mind was a place for numbers and facts– research and academia.” She paused, “sure, I had Mel and my mom, but I really didn’t need anyone else.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Cassandra, look at me.” When I kept my eyes shut, I felt her cool hands on my own, as if she was comforting me. “Cassandra please.” When I didn’t comply she simply continued, “fine, then at least listen. I know I asked for you, but- but I hated you in those early days. You were so brash but so full of life and spontaneity and everything that I wasn’t- you scared me. I watched you change. I felt you change- you grew up… even though you were six thousand years older than me, you aged.”

I snorted, “I aged?” And in my irritation my eyes flew open.

“There you are.” She murmured as our eyes connected. “Cassandra, there is no easy way for me to say this.” She bit her lip. “By now my parents think I’ve gone missing or that I’m dead. God only knows what Mels thinks. But you- you have a purpose and mission.”

“You haven’t been eaves dropping have you?”

Cass laughed, “no, we promised we wouldn’t do that, remember?”

Well, that was a relief. “What I remember is that you graduated with honors from Acroft and that you could pick any university you wanted to go to with so many scholarships that you wouldn’t have to pay a penny!”

Cass squeezed my hands gently, “now you sound just like Ray.”

“Cass your family…”

“Honestly I think my mom knows, somewhere deep in her after all her research into my family she knows.”

I nodded, I had wondered as much for a while now.

“The point is, I know.”

I couldn’t look away from her, her violet eyes, my violet eyes searing into me.

“I know that my soul is too fragile to survive your plan. I’ve known for a while.”

“That’s just cause you’re a smartie pants.” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Picking up slang from your vampire friends?” Teased Cass. I didn’t reply, I had, and I missed Violet, my niece and even Irene with her bright bobbing pink hair and constant stream of words and movement.

“Cass, I-”

“I know. I’m just terribly afraid of what’s next.”

“What’s next?” I whispered, as I searched her eyes, my own eyes. “What’s next is the pearly white gates for you.” I smiled consolingly, “for you- for them all.”

She nodded, tears falling from her eyes as she took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

I tried not to let tears fall from my own eyes as I looked back at her, “any time. I- I really should get back out there.” I nodded toward the windows through which I could see the blue skies of Istanbul.

“Of course, but first- you’ll be needing this one last thing.” Her hands grasped my forearms and I watched as her skin seemed to fade away, turning into light that seemed to be being absorbed into me.

I felt my jaw drop, what was Cass doing? I tore my gaze away from my arms and back to her face that was also slowly disappearing into light that was coming directly at me. “Cass?”

“Goodbye, Cassandra- Godspeed. Perhaps one day, I’ll see you at your pearly white gates.” Cass face, and eyes twinkled as she faded, sending me one last smile before a wave of light hit me.

I blinked a few times, but found I was in the waiting room of my mind alone, and that my arm was killing me. I looked down and there I saw it under the writhing tattoo- Lucas’ huge red handprint. I was horrified. I knew I needed to get back to the surface before Lucas realized I was just smiling and nodding and not really there, but I couldn’t move. I reached out to the furthest corners of my mind, reaching out for Cass, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. I screamed her name until my mental voice was hoarse and I had no energy to call out. There was a vacant feeling, as if I was actually alone, I hadn’t felt that since before I had been wrenched from Hell.

“So she’s done it.” I heard my voice echo in the empty room and that’s when I was hit by a wall of emotions- fear, worry, rage, revenge… facts, figures, names…places, Ray, Mariah, Mel… a library somewhere near her house… I grit my teeth, aware I was standing in the eye of the hurricane that was the essence of Cass Pirot. Cass’ essence fused with who I was, who Cassandra was and when the wind of it finally stopped, I shuddered, not quite sure who I was anymore. There were doors filled with memories that called out for me to look, to see– and I knew I had to look, to see, to learn– Cass’ death would not be in vain, and I would mourn her, but as tempting as it was to discover who I was now, I had very real things in the real world that I had to deal with. I took a step away from the rattling doors in my mind and I pushed myself outward, the sounds of the doors and memories growing quieter until I found myself blinking and standing in the warm sun in the arms of the man who would never know what he had just forced my last ancestor to give up.

Lucas looked down at me with concern and as our eyes locked I couldn’t tell if he knew something had happened in my mind or not. I smiled at him and resumed paying attention to the guide who had just finished explaining that the ground crew were undoing the stabilizing ropes so that we could finally take off. Indeed, I felt the whoosh as the basket was pulled up into the sky and the ground slid away beneath us. Lucas gave me a tighter hug as we drifted further into the sky, and our captain began to tell us the sights we would see in the next hour and a bit and then he was opening a picnic basket and pouring us wine and offering us pastries and fruits.

“To the future.” The guide cheered, obviously having been told we were on our honeymoon.

“Here, here!” Agreed Lucas, clinking his glass with mine.

I took a big swallow of my wine, and tried not to look at him, because I knew if I did I would not be able to fake any more love for him, not now, when Cass had just given me everything that she was in order to break the curse on my family. The tattoo hidden by my glove twisted on my arm as if to agree, it was time to break this curse. I just hoped Mark was able to find the scrolls and monks in black before we landed, because tomorrow we would leave here to start our three-day cruise of the Mediterranean and then home and into the dark underground that was the hidden lair of Nephilim of St. Mary’s.

18 Shadows of Flame

I made many stops along the way to the edge of the ancient city. I asked my driver, who knew the city well, where the best place to stop for supplies was if I was interested in staying alive in the desert, and he had directed me to a shop in the middle of one of the open air markets. The air was hot, humid, the sun so bright I knew I was going to either look like a shiny red button or a rusted bolt by the end of my time here. Topher was sure to mock me at my return, that is if he even noticed me. These days Topher had been throwing himself into his duties as a guard of the fallen much more diligently than he ever had before and I couldn’t help but wonder why- what was driving him to work so hard. The number of cast offs that he had found abandoned in the cemetery had tripled in the last few months… Marissa being only one of the many my brother had or was trying to save. How he could be so impartial to the creatures he was saving, especially when I knew he thought they were all beneath him was wild. Marissa and he had become fast friends with that blue haired idiot- Sebastian. I shook my head, I had too much to do today to get distracted by my brother.

I followed the directions of my driver to the letter; enter the market, walk fifty paces forward, take a sharp turn to the left, pass three stalls and then turn right down what looks like an alleyway. In the alleyway stop before a door that is painted white and knock seven times. Wait. When the door is opened mention you know Hakeem and you will be welcomed into the store that will give you the supplies you have for the gold they desire.

I sighed. It was clear my driver knew who or at least what I was and was willing to both help me and turn a blind eye to it all.

“I will be waiting for you if you return.” Hakeem had called out after me as I entered the crowded market. I didn’t finch as I heard the threat in his tone or choice of words.

Mother was counting on me to find these scrolls. I would not fail her. I counted fifty steps as I tried to meander and not rush or draw too much attention to myself. Merchants on either side of the open-air hall called out to me, and if I got too close shoved their wares in my face or reached out to take hold of my arm. Time had stood very still in this pocket of the world, and if I had had the time, I would have lingered here, engaging in bartering for fruits or spices or just listening to all the people and languages. I stopped, having taken fifty steps and looked to my left, it was a narrower hall of stalls, and I started to wonder if I should have brought my Nephilim blades with me on this trip, despite father telling me not to. I turned and walked warily down the hall pretending to be interested in the carpets and rugs that hung from the first stall, or the silks and brightly colorful bolts of fabric one woman held out before me in the second, anything other than look suspicious. I just had to pass one more stall, slowed my pace and looked at what might be in the third- books, but not just any books, books of myth and legend- books about the Nephilim. I tried to remain calm as my eyes locked with the man standing in the booth selling his wares- what he was doing was illegal, and as one of the Guard, I could arrest him and take him to the high council if that was what I decided. Hakeem was testing me, to see what I was made of, and I could not let him win. I tore my eyes away from the man hawking his illegal books and pretended to be disinterested as I turned into the alleyway and walked away, but I could feel this man’s eyes on my back challenging me as I walked away.

The white door was halfway down the alley and by then the man who had been staring at me had lost interest and gone back to selling his wares. I thought about giving Hakeem a mouthful when I got back to the car but decided it really wasn’t my job. I would simply report him by informing whoever was Guarding here, and he and his illegal books would be scooped up before tomorrow morning, after that he would get what was coming to him for revealing our secrets to humans.

I raised my fist and knocked, seven times and waited. I waited so long that for a moment I thought Hakeem had lied to me, I had almost turned to walk away by the time I heard a scraping of a lock and the white door pulled inward. I blinked, a huge golem blocked the path. Shit. I should have brought my blades. The giant golem stood unmoving from the door it had opened, and I remembered what I was supposed to say-

“I am friends with Hakeem.” ‘Friends,’ was not the word I would have liked to use, I thought after the test and the trickery and now the very illegal golem.

The golem hearing Hakeem’s name backed out of the way and made room for me to pass. I stared into the dim entrance and tried not to hear Topher’s voice in my head, telling me how stupid I was to enter hostile territory without being armed or something like that, and I ducked my head and scurried into the open doorway, blinking in the dim light as I did. The door behind me slammed shut, the golem returning to his assigned position as ‘bouncer’ of this establishment. I looked at it only once more before taking in the room I was now standing in, it was an entryway, littered with shoes and scarves and walking sticks… I half contemplated kicking off my hiking boots, but thought someone might steal them, so I left them on and wandered towards the sounds of life from somewhere else in the building. I cautiously walked forward and paused before entering the next room, I glanced into the new room from the shadows and tried not to be shocked. The room before me was filled with all sorts of supernatural beings, it was some sort of supply shop, which doubled as a moderately sized cafe– reminiscent of Gustos. I might have stayed there but I felt a grip on my arm and was flung into the wall in the little entry way. I threw my fists up, head spinning to face my attacker when I came face to face with someone I knew very well.

“Topher? What the FU-”

Topher laughed, howled at me, as I tried to not let my rage explode. He reached over and ruffled my blonde hair, “gottcha.”

“Seriously, what are you doing here?” I almost added a follow up question about if dad knew he was here, but I decided that question would wait until we were in a far less public place.

“Follow me.” Topher gestured and led us into the shop. “I may or may not,” Topher murmured over the voices and heads of the creatures and beings in the shop as we wound our way to the shop counter, “have been given a mission from-” he paused, also seeming to feel we should not mention our father, “the Guard, which involved me doing some travel, and just when I was about to head home I happened to see you wandering the streets this morning.”

I looked Topher up and down, trying to assess whether he was telling the truth. Topher and I rarely lied to one another but he was a prankster and also loved picking fights with me.

“So, Hakeem was in on your prank?”

Topher nodded.

“And you really didn’t know this was where we were coming?”

Topher shrugged, “Of course someone may have mentioned it but-”

“And your ‘mission’ just so happened to lead you here?” I asked, trying not to sound doubtful. The last thing I needed today was to waste the precious little time I had fighting with my brother.

“Obviously.” Topher rang a bell on the counter, and a tall thin Fae with a brown apron and orange marble eyes wandered over. “Now, whatever you want, it’s on me.”

I hesitated. I could feel Topher’s weighted stare, and knew he wanted me to take him with me on whatever mission he thought was deemed by dad- he would have no clue what to do with the information I had in my grasp. He wouldn’t believe me about mother, because his eyes were blinded by his devotion to his work- and if he didn’t believe me then he would report me to my father and something terrible would happen. I’d be banished or sent to the outskirts of the world and left to rot until Armageddon. I could barely escape with my life. I weighed the possibilities as the orange eyed Fae broke the tension between me and my brother,

“What can I get for the fine traveling members of the Guard?”

I decided to take a half risk. “I need supplies to travel into the desert.” I paused, “Make that two sets of supplies, worthy of the fine traveling members of the Guard.” I added sarcastically.

“That will take me some time.” The orange eyed fae replied ignoring my tone of voice or perhaps he simply didn’t care that two Nephilim were standing in his cafe.

Topher looked intrigued, “And while we wait, we will grab two of your specials, for here.”

I tried not to grimace, not knowing what may count as ‘special’ in this particular cafe. Was Topher being bold, or did he just happen to know what the ‘special’ on the menu was and was baiting me further… I nodded as Topher plunked a medium sized bag of gold coins onto the counter, which the fae took, weighed in his hand, clearly decided that what we had given him would cover our mysterious supplies and food and then walked away without another glance at us. Topher nodded in the direction of where a bank of cafe booths were located against the opposite wall. I followed him and we slid into an open one, both of us turning slightly to view the more than full and bustling shop, even unarmed either of us could cause a ruckus if we were attacked or provoked, I just hope it didn’t come to that.

“Spill.” Topher all but spat at me, now that we were slightly more inconspicuous he let his gallant front slip and I saw the same monster that dwelt in me revealed. Topher’s rage had always been closer to the surface than mine, and I usually had to be the one to bring him down, remind him he was still part human, not all fully angel, not like our father- who had once commanded legions… my desire to punch him in the face never quite dissipated, and I am sure that was what he saw now, as his glare leveled me from across the tiny plastic booth.

“Toph- have you ever really stopped, even for a minute, just stopped?”

“Stopped?” Topher’s brown eyes crinkled with confusion and he leaned back in the hard seat running his hand through his thick blonde hair, “what the hell are you talking about?”

“Nevermind.” I sighed, no he would never understand my musings, or question what he had been asked to do by our father… he was too blinded. “Do you ever question anything?”

“Do you never not?” Topher snickered, but when I didn’t say anything in retort, he squirmed in his seat knowing something was bugging me, looked uncomfortable- he always had been with any type of emotion other than irritation or anger or his emo sadness. Letting out a deep breath he finally broke the silence, “okay, I’ll bite. What is it that I am supposed to be questioning or whatever…”

A beautiful Fae, with dark green eyes and tanned skin, and bright red hair wearing a pale blue waitress dress saundered over to our booth, her arms laden with trays, “Specials for the sons of thunder.” She did not blink as she put down a plate before my brother and I, instead choosing to back away slowly from the table, her arm just barely missing being grabbed by my brother who looked like he might blow up from her comment.

“Toph-” I started but his cold chilling words to the Fae waitress cut me off before I could calm him.

“Who do you think you are, to dare address my brother and I as such? I could have your wings ripped from your body for making such a bold declaration- you don’t know me. You don’t know my brother.”

I hissed. So much for anonymity. The Fae waitress, I looked at her name tag- Ivy, was much bolder than I gave her credit, she shivered in the spot she stood but she looked down her long pointed nose at Topher and calmly said, “I know what you are. That is enough. I also know you are not supposed to be here.” Her green marble eyes seemed to narrow for a moment, and she said very quietly, “there are many traveling members of the Guard, they all have the right papers to travel, you have none. Do not press your luck, or I will report you for breaking the treaty. I may be a lowly fae, but I know the rules and I know my rights. You think for a moment the council will take the side of a Fallen?” Ivy took a step backwards, making sure all the creatures gathered could see her and notice her conversation, I shivered, sensing her hate. “Leave me and my wings alone,” She hissed, before spinning and storming off back the way she had come.

For a moment everyone in the shop and cafe seemed to hold their breath, but as quickly as the moment arrived, it departed. The music was still playing from an ancient jukebox near the cafe, and the patrons and customers looked away as quickly as they had stopped to watch the conversation, each of course had their own reasons for not wanting to stare at us, but now they all knew we were there we got more than one curious glance our way. I looked down at the food she had brought us- hoping that at least what was there was palatable, and was pleasantly surprised; chicken kebabs, along with some kind of cooked grain, various in season vegetables, baklava and a cup of Turkish coffee. Picking up a fork I remained quiet, and began to eat, ignoring the glances from the other patrons, and ignoring the sounds of my sputtering angry brother who was looking to blow off steam, but I wouldn’t give him the ammunition. What felt like an eternity later I felt him settle into an annoyed defeat, and heard the sounds of him begrudgingly begin to eat the meal in front of him. I looked up, and decided I had wasted about as much time as I could spare, and either I trusted my brother with some information to get him to help me, or I found a way to ditch him- and the former would be easier than the later so I cleared my throat to get his attention.

“What?” Topher hissed, popping a larger chunk of chicken off the kebab and into his mouth.

“Do you want to come with me?”

Topher’s curiosity got the better of his sour mood and I watched his anger slowly evaporate as he leaned in, “you know I do.”

“I’ve been asked to locate some particular valuable-” I hesitated knowing we were probably being overheard now that Topher had drawn so much attention to our presence, “items,” I continued, “that have been lost for centuries.”

Topher scowled, “you’re going on a treasure hunt?” There was a sound of incredulousness in his tone, as if he clearly thought this task was beneath me.

I rolled my eyes, “look, if you don’t want to come, you don’t have to.” I took a sip of my coffee, letting my baited words take effect. “Obviously I want to come with you.” Topher said quicker than I thought he would. “I just want to clarify that we’re on a treasure hunt.”

If that’s how he wanted to play it, fine. “Sure.” I shrugged, “a treasure hunt.” I cursed silently that by the time Topher and I left this place with our supplies, if our host even deemed to grant them to us now that Tohper had all but threatened his waitstaff, Hakeem would be long gone. “I only have this afternoon to find said items,” I continued, “as the timeline denotes moving on from here shortly.”

“That’s awfully vague isn’t it?”

The orange eyed Fae, who I hadn’t noticed since we had sat in the booth, had reappeared and made his way through the crowd nodding at us to follow him. I cast a look at Topher and we both stood, falling in line behind the fae as he continued his arc around the shop and then led us through the waitstaff doors into the even more cluttered back rooms of the building. There were a few tables in the right of the hallway, where Fae in waitress uniforms lounged, an open window into a bright kitchen and to the left stairs heading down into what might have been a dark hole. Topher and I cast a wary glance at each other as the orange eyed Fae walked down the stairs into the darkness below. I looked at the gathered Fae who were lounging or running food to tables, to the dark stairwell, none of the Fae seemed to notice or care we were there. I shrugged at Topher and began descending the stairs.

It was cooler in the stairway than the rooms above, and I knew instantly why- this basement, similar to our own home under St. Mary’s, was dug into the earth. I heard Topher behind me, as I continued down the steps, deeper and deeper, further away from the main floor. My eyes adjusted to the darkness slowly, but I couldn’t make out much more than blurry shapes, a metal railing was off to one side of the stairs, and possibly some sort of broken light fixtures hanging from the slanted ceiling above us. I don’t know how long we descended for, only that eventually the ground evened out and there were no more steps, and the sound of the orange eyed Fae lighting a match. In the dim light I saw a red door, with a lock. The Fae pulled out a key from his apron pocket and with the last bit of light unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The interior of whatever room the Fae had unlocked was lit from within, he gestured that I should enter, and so I did, Topher grunting behind me, his tone suggesting that this was indeed a very bad idea. I didn’t have a clue how desperate I was to help mother though or Annabelle, and in order to do so, I would take this calculated risk. I ignored Topher’s silent plea, and looked around the new space Topher and I had entered as the door clanged shut behind us. Topher gasped, as he blinked in the fluorescent lit room we now found ourselves in, I tried to take in what I was looking at, but couldn’t find the words.

“It’s a warehouse!” Topher exhaled, and it was, there were rows upon rows of metal shelves filled with wooden boxes that contained some unknown cargo for as far as I could see, and the room was massive.

“Hail and welcome, sons of thunder.”

Topher stiffened beside me, as a very thin darkly tanned man, who didn’t quite feel human walked out from behind one of the giant wooden boxes which had been stacked off to our left.

“Yes, hail and welcome to my-” the man paused, “humble collection.”

“Who are you?” Topher asked as,

“What are you?” Slipped out of my mouth.

The man was tall and thin, dressed robes of black, with gold bracelets and darkly tanned skin, his eyes a golden brown, which seemed to know more of laughter than I had ever known, the laughter lines around his eyes deeply set, yet he did not laugh now as he faced us, his eyes cautious and drawn, as if he knew exactly what had happened up in the cafe between my brother and Ivy.

“Hail and well met.” I murmured and bowed low, poking Topher in the ribs as I did, hoping he would copy my behavior for once, and he must have got my point because I heard him meekly mumbling the same a moment later. I stayed in my bow, showing respect, hoping that Topher hadn’t completely screwed up my day. “You call us sons of thunder, may I ask why?” I took a chance to glance at our host, and he nodded. I slowly stood up and so did my brother.

“I know whose sons you are. It is an accurate title.”

I grit my teeth, whose sons we were, was a closely kept secret. “You know more about me and my brother than we do you.” I managed to say calmly, while I gripped an arm on my brother, to keep him from exploding again.

The man in black robes nodded, “I apologize, my name is Abrham and I am one of the last of my tribe. A tribe that you have been looking for-” Abraham paused and stared me down, “if I am not mistaken.”

From beside me I could feel Topher’s silent questions, but I ignored him. “Who told you I was looking for the monks in black?”

Abrham blinked, and I watched him fade slowly into a mist and back to being a solid form. “You might say I am a djinn, you might call me a shapeshifter, I am the last of a long line.”

So, the monks in black were not seers, but djinn. Interesting, I took a deep breath, then it had been his golem that was on guard up above, his illegal golem, I tried not to scowl.

“I have many friends, many enemies,” he continued, “and when Amaar heard you with the daughter of Eve, I knew that you would be coming to find me.”

“Daughter of Eve?” Topher hissed, and I felt his accusatory glare at me.

“Yes, you call her, Cassandra.” Abrham answered Topher, while not breaking eye contact with me.

Topher gasped. I could sense him putting together the pieces but I had no time to explain all that he had been too oblivious to see. “I do not yet have the scrolls.”

“And you are not the only ones looking for them.”

I saw Silvaneous in the back of my head, and Abrham nodded as if he could also see what I had seen, and pulled out two brown leather bags from somewhere in the recesses of his black robes. “All you need is within,” Abrham paused, “Amaar has left you a gift, I told her you were not worthy of such a valuable heirloom, but perhaps she, in her excellent wisdom and foresight has seen what I could not.”

I took the brown leather bags from Abrham and passed one to Topher, “Please thank Amaar,” whoever or whatever Amaar is, “for such a rare gift.”

Abrham smiled, catching my unspoken comments somehow, and pulling two sheathed swords from what looked like thin air, he stared at them for a moment and then handed us each one, and even as our hands grasped the sheathed swords by the hilt, the room around us fell away and nausea filled me. I grit my teeth and from beside me I heard Topher groan. When the world stopped spinning I found we were standing at the edge of the city, with nothing but dust and sand in front of us and the unrelenting heat from the sun searing down on us.

“To find what you seek, look to the caves deep within.” I heard Abrham’s voice whisper and the wind physically moved me so I was facing east, “look to the east.” Abrham’s voice died off as the wind faded.

“Well, that’s one way to travel, I suppose.” Topher coughed, as he held the sword up in front of him, examining the leather sheath, before attaching it to his belt and slinging the brown bag onto his back. “Doesn’t actually look like much,” Topher gestured at the sheathed sword, “but you on the other hand-” he paused his eyes slicing into me like knives, “have a lot of explaining to do.”

I strapped the sword on, and put the bag on my back, as a giant shadow sailed over us. I looked up as a hot air balloon floated over us in the sky, and remembered I was running short of time. “Look Toph, I know you’ve got tons of questions, and yeah- I’ll answer them but for right now, we need to use our powers.”

“What?”

“Cassandra and dad are on a hot air balloon as we speak, and there are others looking for these scrolls, and as you might have noticed, we’re not here officially as Nephilim, so-”

“So, we can’t get caught, AND dad can’t know we used our powers…”

“Exactly.”

“What exactly is in these scrolls that make them so valuable?”

What indeed, prophecies for certain… But other than that? I had no clue. I shrugged. “All I know is that Silvaneous is looking for them, so they must hold some kind of power, or information- and I need them because of well, because of mom.”

Topher nodded, chewing his lip- I was actually surprised that he was remaining so calm. “It’s been forever since we’ve gotten to use our powers…” Topher finally mumbled, “not sure I even remember how.”

I laughed. “Come on bro- it’s like using your wings to fly, and I really hope you haven’t gotten so used to driving that stupid blue car that you’ve stopped using your wings.” Even now I could feel my wings aching to be brought out, aching for me to unfurl them and soar into the air higher than the hot air balloons that now littered the sky.

Topher grumbled something undecipherable, while I closed my eyes and accessed the power father had forbidden us to use in a millennia- I saw it there tucked in my soul, this little box, with the key in the lock, just waiting for me to open it, shimmering- aching, just like I imagined my wings were in this moment. I mentally turned the key and felt the full force of my power explode through my core. “Now, there are fae and shapeshifters and werewolves and vampires-” I all but sang, “but none of them compare to this, to what we are.” Light, and darkness shifted in me, time shifted in me, and I took a deep breath- feeling my skin ripple as I focused my energy on being and becoming. If Silvaneous the vampire was hunting my ‘treasure’ than I would appear as he did, I blinked and felt my insides reorganizing, felt my skin paling, my wings disappearing deep within my vampire disguise, and when I was done, I was a vampire, or at least if I ran into one I had their speed, their power, and their scent… I looked over at Topher and he looked completely disgusted.

“You stink.” Topher growled, but I could sense his awe, even as I could his resentment.

I blinked, everything was sharper, scents, vision, physical touch- I closed my eyes and let the light breeze caress my face. “So do you.” My nose crinkled as I leaned away from my brother who now smelt like actual trash.

“Okay dumbass.” Topher hissed, “so, you have a disguise, big deal. You plan on running through the desert and burning through all your power in one go?”

I snapped my fingers and a black SUV purred into existence beside us. I flung my eyes open and glared at my brother, “shut up, and get in.”

---

It was midday by the time that the hot air balloon blew us completely into the desert, and our guide offered us lunch as we continued to make the tour circuit, chatting with Lucas and pointing out landmarks below. Something glinted along the ground miles below us, and I thought instantly of Mark. I took a steadying breath and looked out across the desert, when had the world gotten so large? I remembered running across the Pangea, a breeze very similar to this one, rushing across my face. I blinked and unbidden that planted memory arose again- part of it I knew was real, but the other part of it felt new- like it hadn’t happened yet and was happening all over again for the thousandth time. I again felt the distinct impression that I needed to pass this memory on, it wasn’t just for me, it was for someone else… But who? Who else but me would need access to my memories?

I saw the tall vampire walking towards me- he was as I had always pictured my own vampire child to look like when he was grown, he was a spitting image of a much younger version of Marcus, from the thick dark hair rimmed with auburn, to the catlike green eyes that were somehow much more alive than alive could be… he was in my memory of my last time at the cave, the last time I had felt my vampire twins moving within me, before they had been stolen. I had never told anyone about what had happened there in that cave. Only Marcus, Pierre and Silvaneous had even known I was pregnant with Marcus’ children. I was singing a lullaby, one my mother had sung to me, when the strange vampire who looked like he was exhausted entered my cave, I offered him food and rest from his travels. Our conversation was as strange as he was, like he didn’t know that he could eat human food or that animals of the night could harm him.

“What is your name?” I heard my younger self ask.

“Vincent.” He replied.

“Vincent, what a lovely name.”

“And you, what is your name?”

“Cassandra.”

I shook myself out of the trance like memory, realizing Lucas was speaking to me as my baby fluttered within me. The baby within me? I had thought that was part of my memory, but no, here in the waking, I could feel the little flutters, the same flutters I had felt when my vampire children had been in my womb. My jaw dropped, I felt the little flutter, like a small butterfly within me. I knew I shouldn’t have been so surprised after what Lucas and I had done, I had known that the outcome would likely be this, but I had forgotten what that little flutter had felt like. I clasped my hand to my abdomen and looked up into Lucas’ blue eyes, we stared at each other as the guide continued on talking about the caves at the bottom of the massive rocks we were about to fly over, but neither of us really cared in that moment, both of us feeling different things, me joy and sorrow, him- well, I don’t know, and I wouldn’t assume to know, but I knew he knew, even though I hadn’t told him, he knew.

“I will not touch you that way again.” He whispered, “We’ll go home tomorrow.”

So much for my Mediterranean cruise, no matter, if my plan succeeded I would travel to my heart’s content, for now- I turned my sight inward and hummed to the tiny butterfly who would grow into this new breed of hybrid Nephilim that I was now carrying.

“Hush little baby, don’t say a word…”

---

Topher didn’t speak to me as we drove mile after mile, the air conditioning on full blast, so we didn’t have to smell one another, and country music blaring out of the speakers, not my decision, but his. I was surprised that Topher didn’t ask me how I knew if we were driving the right direction, or if we would run out of gas or even what we would do if we ran into the vampires working on behalf of Silvaneous, he just kept looking in the rear view mirror and occasionally up at the sky.

“Poor Hakeem,” he eventually muttered, “he’s probably still waiting for us to pay our tab.”

I knew Toph was trying to lighten the mood, so I chuckled, even if it wasn’t fully genuine. “Well, thanks to Abrham, he’s gonna be waiting for a long time.” I glanced at Topher and tried to smile, “bygones?” I lied, hating that it was easier to lie to him when in this form than it was in my own skin.

Topher grunted in response.

“So, mom. That’s big.”

“Yeah, huge.”

“You can’t tell dad you know, right?”

Topher let out a big sigh, “I know. I’ve never kept a secret from him before… now I’ll be lying about you using your full Nephilim powers and about knowing mom has somehow been brought back from beyond the grave.”

“Thanks.” I managed to get out before looking back out at the desert. There were no roads here, only sand and dirt and rocks and whatever vegetation that could survive the extreme heat. I felt rather than could see the creatures that also lived out here in the backwater of nowhere… I could hear their hearts beating in their burrows and caves, just like I could hear my own brother’s heart thundering as he pondered what to do. “You know- you might have seen a ‘taking’ up close, I never have,” I swallowed hard thinking about mom having to go through it all again and- I couldn’t think about that right now, her plan had to work. “But father told me other things that you might not know.” Topher had been away for a long time, traveling, doing father’s dirty work, so that father could remain hidden, so that no one would ever know that Lucifer was alive. It was only in the last few hundred years that Topher and I had been on the same continent. “Did you know,” I began as I pulled the SUV up to the base of a massive rock formation that extended high into the sky. I had followed Abrham’s guiding force, or whatever it was that had somehow steered the SUV in this direction, and it felt like we might have reached the right caves…

“Did I know what?”

“Did you know that only the original Fallen, I mean the ones who fell with dad, are able to use their FULL powers?” I let that sink in for a minute, wondering when and if Topher would pick up on my implication.

“But we can access those powers too- so that must be a lie.”

“Nope, beyond the original Fallen only we- dad’s original children with the original Cassandra, can use these powers.” Sons of thunder indeed. I knew because that had been my task, while Topher had travelled to keep others in line, I had traveled to all the places father had sent my half siblings across the globe to test them to see if they had any of the powers we did. They did not. This new sibling that my mother would be forced to bear though… he wouldn’t be a half sibling, he would be a full sibling, the son of my father, Lucifer and Cassandra, the daughter of Eve, and… he would also be a hybrid thanks to my mother’s plan. I tried not to think of it as I put the truck in park. “We’re here.”

Topher and I both disembarked the truck, I cast a sideways look at him, “are you going to use your powers?” I asked as calmly as I could, and as if in response, he melted into a black mist.

“They won’t see me in the cave, I swear, but there’s no way in hell I am going to look like or smell like, one of those blood suckers.” Topher’s voice floated to me in the breeze.

“Fine.” I hissed, “let’s go find this scroll.”

19 Curtain Call

Topher and I stalked our way into one of the caves, we had circled the entire structure for some time before we had spotted the other vampires slinking through a tiny crevice in one of the rocks.Topher wanted to follow them straight away but I told him to hang out in the shadows while I went back to their trucks and siphoned their gas so that they couldn’t follow us after everything. I slunk back to the entrance of the cave, calmly irritated by how quickly my body could move in this vampire form and how silently. I motioned to the black mist that was my brother to go ahead, while I brought up the rear, and we stalked the vampires through the caves. I could smell them and even in the darkness I found I could see things remarkably well, but I could also hear faint whispers like a million voices speaking to me, and it sent chills down my spine. I froze, realizing I was hearing the voices of the dead, calling to me, asking me questions about the now, and had their life’s work remained untouched and hidden. I knew instantly who the voices belonged to- to Abrham’s tribe and people.

We reached a larger portion of the cave where we could either go left or right- and I heard the vampires slinking down the path to the right. I was almost a foot into the new passage when I heard the whispers, telling me to go the other way. I wasn’t sure if I should, what if they were leading me in the wrong direction? Hadn’t they said they didn’t want their scrolls to be found? But, what was the harm in at least looking? I felt Topher’s cloud hanging over me, questioning silently. I turned around and headed down the other passage, something calling me, propelling me forward. I don’t know how long we walked for, only that this passageway was narrower and felt older than the other parts of the cave. I crouched down, now on my knees as we continued forwards- and that’s when I heard singing. I knew it wasn’t human, it was too gutteral, too ancient. I wished I could see Topher’s face or ask him if he could hear it too, but the risk was too great, I didn’t know how far vampires could hear, and I didn’t want to risk exposure, not yet. The sword at my side began to quiver as if it was alive. I tried to ignore it, but it started to shake- hissing and swearing silently, I reached with effort to my side and pulled the sword out of its sheath, and the blade burst into flame, and at the same time I felt my disguise fall away.

I gasped, my breath echoing down the passageway. I felt the power of the sword and knew in a minute it surpassed my own, I also knew where it was from. I tried not to panic, trinket indeed. The sword attached itself to my arm, as if it was possessed, and I felt my arm swing in an arc, and watched as the blade cut through the stones, and I was pulled to my feet. The sound of stone splitting under the blade was so loud that I knew we would not escape detection from the vampires. Topher materialized at my side, and pulled out his flaming sword, and swore,

“God save us.”

I blinked in the darkness, my Nephilim eyes not being able to see the way my eyes had in my vampire disguise, but I could tell that the sword had sliced us a clean path right through the rock and that the though I could no longer hear the guttural singing, the sword pulled me forward. Had Abrham known that you would need the cherubim’s flaming swords from the garden of Eden to find the original words of God that these djinn had written down? We stumbled our way forwards, slipping on rocks and grabbing at the sharp sides of the stone passageway until there was nowhere else to go.

“What?” Topher hissed, “this can’t be it. Tell me there’s more!”

I took a deep breath, and swung my sword around. Topher was right, this couldn’t be it, that’s when I saw the markings of the swords engraved on the walls. I could now hear the vampires behind us, throwing rocks, swearing, yelling. We were running out of time, I glanced at Topher in the light of the two flaming swords and suddenly understood what Abhram had been trying to tell me, tell us-

“Toph, when I say so, clash your sword against mine.”

Topher looked over his shoulder at the increasingly louder sounds of the vampires approaching.

“Toph, please.”

The sounds of breath panting and the echo of running feet no longer silent sounded so close that the vampires might as well have been on top of us.

“Fine.” Topher hissed, “but I don’t know how we’re getting out of here.”

He was right, but I didn’t let him dwell on it. “For mother,”

“For mother.” Topher agreed.

“One, two, three!” Topher and I threw our swords together and as they clashed I could feel all my bones shake, the air around us rung, as if the entire passageway had become a giant gong or bell and I could hear the vampires screaming down the passage. As the peals reverberated, I threw my head around wildly, looking to see if anything had changed, if a new passageway had revealed itself or- and that’s when I looked down, a handle appeared in the stone beneath our feet. I quickly passed my sword to Topher who took up a defensive stance at the mouth of our passageway, ready for the vampires to arrive. I reached into the stone handle and pulled, there was a grinding sound as I yanked up a stone lid, under which was a box of sealed scrolls. I picked one up, and heard the sound of thunder in my head and my hand burnt.

“These are Holy words.” I heard after the thunder faded away, “and you are not worthy to handle them.” I didn’t debate that- that was what I needed Abrham for. I pulled off my brown leather bag and taking a deep breath I plunged both my hands into the wooden box and screamed as my being caught fire- but not the scrolls. I dropped the scrolls into my open leather bag, which seemed to have no end. The bag should have been over flowing with the scrolls but it was not- and I was on fire.

“This is Holy ground.” The fire seemed to scream at me, as the ground beneath myself and Topher began to shake.

“Abrham!” I screamed into the darkness, “I have found your scrolls.” I watched the whorls on my skin becoming ash, I was dying from holy fire, if Abrham or Amaar didn’t help me, I would die and my brother would most certainly try to survive, but the odds were not in his favor, not without access to our Nephilim powers- which thanks to the swords were cut off. After all- only angels were allowed to carry Cherubim swords, swords that were forged in Heaven itself. “Amaar!” I howled as the fire licked my skin, and the sounds of the vampires were so close I could almost feel them about to attack. “Amaar, please! Help us! Help us not for our sake, but for Abrham, for my mother!” I felt a cool wind and the dizzying sense I was being whisked away. I felt ill, I closed my eyes and let myself down in the sense of falling.

I probably would have remained unconscious for days had it not been for the distant sounds of shouting. I peeled one eye open and as Abrham’s basement warehouse came into focus. Topher was shouting and waving his arms at Abrham, his face beet red, pointing at his Nephilim marks which normally moved as we did, but were strangely still after holding the Cherubim’s swords. I grunted, I couldn’t feel any of my powers, not even my beautiful wings- all seemed to have gone still and silent. I gasped, why had Amaar given us the swords? The shouting stopped and I felt Topher race towards me, throwing his palm onto my sweaty skin to check my temperature with his hand.

“He’s still burning up, old man!”

“Nonsense,” Abrham muttered, and another hand, much cooler than my brother’s, felt my head and cheeks. “He is alive, he is well- and now you must leave.”

I forced myself to sit up and open my eyes. I was sitting on top of one of the wooden crates in the warehouse beneath the diner. “Wait- after all that, you want us to leave?”

“That’s exactly what I have been saying,” Topher hissed.

“Listen to me, both of you.” Abraham’s factual voice implored, “if it had not been for Ammar, the holy fire would have kept spreading and eventually consumed you both. If that is what happened simply by touching the scrolls, imagine what would happen if you were in the room when they were opened?”

I knew Abrham was right, but it didn’t bring me the satisfaction I hoped it would. I reached up and ran a hand through my hair, and then remembered how on fire I had been. I gasped and held out my hands in front of me and stared at them in awe- not a burn, not a scratch. “Amaar is an Angel, isn’t she?” It had only been after I had asked for protection of my mother that Amaar had saved us, like she knew her, like she had known that my mother needed saving.

Abrham merely looked at me and while he said nothing about Amaar, he continued, “I have put a new sigil on each of you, when there is news I will contact you, besides, your mother will not need this until after she survives.”

I wanted to ask Abrham how he could even know or guess at my mother’s plan, but instead I looked at my inner forearm where a new whorl danced, two men holding thunderbolts. “Comical, my wise friend.” I managed to choke out, Topher was not so amused.

“Amaar gives you the swords. Use them well, and only for good. I will contact you soon.”

I wanted to ask Abrham about why I couldn’t feel my sigils or wings or detect any of my power since using the sword, but the words died on my lips, even as I opened my mouth to ask them, as if the djinn had taken them out of my mouth, and swallowed them.

“That, young Nephilim, is a mystery for another time, and time is something you do not have right now- is it?”

Again it felt like the world was spinning and suddenly I was standing with Topher outside Hakeem’s cab, which was idling in the lane outside the market. “Toph, go. Take the swords. Father can’t know we did any of this, he can’t know- promise me.”

Topher took the sheathed sword I held out at him and added it to the one hanging from his belt. “Sons of thunder, my ass.” He hissed glaring at the mark on his arm, I chuckled, and he sent me one of his fleeting smiles, that was so infrequent. “Fine, to all of it. And our pow-”

“I don’t know Toph. This is more your expertise than mine, take the swords hide them, study them. I want to know exactly why Amaar gave them to us- is Amaar friend or foe?” Because right now, I felt other than my physical training completely powerless, and I wasn’t used to feeling so- human. My silver phone vibrated in my pocket, I pulled it out and flipping it open found a text from my father, ‘hot air balloon tour just landed. Meet us at the hotel. Decided to go home tomorrow. – Dad.’ I scowled, that couldn’t mean anything good, at least I had managed to use my powers and not alert my father in the process. “I have to go, looks like we’re heading home tomorrow.” I pulled open the taxi door and paused, “your mission, did it have anything to do with Marcus?”

Topher saluted me and mock bowed, “I never could hide anything from you brother.”

I shook my head, “no, and neither can I.” I climbed into the cab and found Hakeem snoring at the wheel. I shook him, “wake up sleepy head.”

Hakeem all but jumped at my voice, “oh! Ah, you survived then did you?”

I nodded, if he only knew by how little, and only because an Angel had helped a Fallen, but to what end?

“Where to?”

“Home, Hakeem. It’s time to go home.”

The cab pulled away from the curb, and I watched my other half disappear into the crowd.

---

I was so tired, and so round. I had forgotten what it felt like to be this round- to have feet so swollen and to feel like any movement cost so much energy. True to his word, Lucas had not touched me again, not like that at least. He spoiled me with all kinds of gifts, gold jewelry, dresses and perfume… I only had to ask and he opened up his hand and gave, and all that he gave, I used Mark to get to Violet to secret away in the safe house for financial use at a later date. Lucas’ interests had been taken elsewhere when we’d returned from Istanbul anyways, Christopher had returned from whatever mission that his father had sent him on and whatever it was that he had shared with Lucas had excited him more than I did. In fact I hadn’t seen him in months, left with Mark and Topher to care for my needs, and that suited me fine. Cass’s picture had been plastered over the news and papers, with a drawn photo of Lucas. They were saying it wasn’t likely that she was alive but a victim of foul play. I read the papers and wished I could tell the reporters that much was true. Cass was indeed the victim of foul play.

Mark was working with Viktor, Violet and Juliette, and the fact that my security was so light helped me be able to have a somewhat normal, albeit withdrawn life. Mark was able to sneak me Violet’s blood, and in the confines of my suite at St. Mary’s I was able to work off the vampire high away from Lucas’ prying eyes. There were never more than ten Nephilim at St. Mary’s. Since the wedding and taking, Lucas had been very strict about that- but Tohper and Mark were always bringing in stray supernatural creatures in need of safety and protection, and in those early days when I still could move about, I often helped and gave comfort where needed, even though they all looked at me with pitying eyes, knowing that if i was a human woman, living with Nephilim it was only time before I was in worse shape then them… dead.

Topher had changed since returning from whatever trip he had been on, he was kinder to me, gentler- and I wondered if Mark had told him I was his mother. A softness that I hadn’t seen yet blossomed in Topher- he smiled more, laughed, even joked. He told me facts about his life unprovoked, like the fact that he had returned to Acroft High, he was in the night classes with Vincent Steinheart, who he despised, and Marissa and Sebastian were also at Acroft, but they attended during the day so that Vincent wouldn’t be able to cross paths with them. I listened to every detail, trying to learn as much about my children as possible.

Marissa was here too- in a different area of the underground fortress of St. Mary’s. Lucas had helped her wed Sebastian, and yet- the Worthington’s were afraid to take her in as of yet, and I knew that part of that was because they were also helping me, so Marissa lived here at St, Mary’s and would until I gave birth, at least, that was what Mark told me the plan was.

“We’ll get you both out at the same time, I promise.”

I wanted to believe him, but I also knew this plan was nuts, and I worried that I was being too optimistic. I had slowly been sending all my clothing to the safe house, not in large amounts, but small batches, especially when I stopped being able to wear them and resorted to wearing toga-like dresses and braiding my hair into a crown on my head. I wasn’t allowed to spend time with Marissa or Sebastian, though I could often hear them down the hall- Topher told me it was because Lucas didn’t want the vampires to know another Nephilim baby was about to be born, I called bull, as Topher would have said. I knew it was because Lucas was hiding me from Marcus. Lucas might not have known I was ever pregnant with Marcus children, but he knew that we were together and that he loved me and I had loved him… it was enough to keep me a secret.

I wished that Lucas knew that I wasn’t carrying a Nephilim baby, this child growing in me was anything but. I could feel the vampire blood working its way into my child, feel him growing stronger and sense his rage- rage because he knew, yes, this child knew his father was stealing my life and that he would never get to meet me. I had already named him, Michael, and I told Christopher and Mark the same thing- they could not understand why, but I had my reasons. Michael was God’s archangel, and my last Nephilim child was going to be born on the eve of a supernatural war, and if not the eve, but it would surely come in his lifetime. I hoped that Lucas understood the implications of my name choice.

Mark told me shortly after we got home everything about his adventure to find the prophecies and scrolls containing what is to come, I wasn’t sure he was fully telling me everything, but I had to trust him- inside this house of Fallen Angels he was my only advocate and one I could trust. I had never met a djinn, it had sounded so intriguing- and when he mentioned Amaar, I shook remembering seeing her stand outside the garden with a flaming sword… I shivered. She had blocked my path, when I had tried to return, said no one was allowed in anymore, her and her brother Adaar had sworn that no one ever on earth would be let back in. I supposed I always had thought God had scooped the garden up off the earth and taken it back into heaven. If that was the case- what was Amaar doing here? Although I was extremely grateful to her for saving my son. Abrham had yet to give any information to Mark about what was in the scrolls, but knowing that they were holy, perhaps Abrham was also experiencing setbacks in opening and reading them- but I was running quickly out of time. Indeed I only had a few weeks until this baby would burst out of me, his vampire side was strong, and in a dream I had seen him, held my baby, Michael, in my arms and had seen how large his wings were. I shivered, despite being so bulbous.

“Mother?”

I looked up to see Mark, and smiled, despite seeing the effects on him for not yet taking Annabelle- he looked tired, like he constantly had a migraine and though his skin was still tanned from being outside, I could have sworn he looked pale and drawn. “Mark!”

Mark walked over to me and helped me sit down in an oversized green chair. I collapsed, my legs grateful to sit, but also knowing I would never get out of this chair on my own. “What brings you to see me today?”

“This,” he whispered, putting a long glass vial in my hand.

I saw him give me a disapproving look, as I nodded, opened it and drained the contents in one long gulp.The nausea I normally felt from the blood had long since worn off, and the once high, I had felt, now just gave me enough energy to get through the day. “Do you suddenly disapprove?” I had been drinking more this last month, at least a vial each week, sometimes more, if Violet got to see Mark more often.

“No, I- we’re doing it for you.” He whispered, but his eyes went to my swollen abdomen and he scowled.

Neither of us had verbally talked about the implications of this Nephilim hybrid baby, but I knew he was very concerned. “If he is too much, you must steal him away- take him to the Worthingtons, they will look out for him.”

“Yes, but why?”

I wanted to trust him, to tell him that they were his family, but I knew Mark would never accept it, he would be furious. “You know how you take in things that are broken and help them?”

Mark nodded.

“They do the same.” I gave his hands a squeeze and a stab of pain went through me.

“Mother!” Mark gasped, as I moaned.

“It’s almost time.”

Mark stood and began to pace, “Is there anything I can do?”

What did I want, what did I truly want. I looked into my son’s loving eyes. “I want to see that girl, Marissa?”

“Again, mother, why?”

“Please?” I pouted, and a wave of pain hit me- I grit my teeth, perhaps this little one would enter the world sooner than anticipated.

Mark crumbled as he watched me writhe in my chair. “Fine! If that’s what you truly want then yes, okay- you can see her.” Mark pulled me out of my chair, and hauled me into his arms, large grey wings unfolding from his back.

“They aren’t black,” I murmured as I stroked the feathers.

“Of course not.” Mark snapped, “I am not my father.”

No, no he was not. “I know.” I whispered, “I know my son.”

And I closed my eyes and leaned into his warmth as he flew us down the wide hallways and I grit my teeth against the onslaught of pain. When he put me down, we were standing in a hallway not far from the entrance to the church above. I tried not to look surprised, as I glanced at Mark, who knocked on the thick oak door.

“No reply. She might be out, or she might be sleeping.” Mark shrugged, “now let’s get you back to your rooms.”

I shook my head and waddled past him, turning the doorknob with ease, “I’ll wait here for her, if she’s out and if she is sleeping, I’ll still wait.”

“Mother-”

“Wait with me or go back, up to you- you’ll hear me if I need you.”

“Fine. I’m going to go for a jog, I’ll be back in half an hour- Marissa or no Marissa, I’m taking you back to either the lab or your rooms.”

I shivered, but nodded and waddled into the rooms, as I heard Mark stomp off. These rooms were very much like mine, filled with beautiful mismatched vintage furniture and large tapestries on the wall. I sighed and heard a snore from somewhere within. I glanced over my shoulder but no one was there, so I made my way through the sitting room and into the bedroom. I paused at the door, my fingers white on the doorframe because of the pain and also because I could see my little girl asleep on the bed… well little girl was the wrong choice of word, she was sixteen and married, “just like me.” I murmured, thinking of how Cass would be utterly unimpressed.

I slowly and painfully made my way over to the bed where my daughter was sleeping. God, she was so beautiful, and yes, she did look a lot like me. I tentatively reached out a hand and wiped stray hairs off her face. She looked like Marcus and yet, also like me, she had the same brown hair Marcus did, same tattoo too, although hers was on her face- it moved as she breathed. Again I thought of the memory, where I was in the cave, I frowned, should I share this memory with my daughter? She was sleeping right now, so if I did give it to her, she would think she dreamed it- I had no idea how much time had passed since Mark had left me, but thirty minutes was not a long time, and if I didn’t survive the birth someone needed to know. I put my hand on her cool forehead and brought the memory to mind, and I sent that memory down through my fingers and into her sleeping consciousness. I sighed, content to know I had passed the memory to my daughter, content that there was a line of women in my life who had not experienced and would never experience Lucas’ version of twisted love.

“I love you, my little princess.” I whispered, leaning down to kiss her cool forehead, “and I never stopped loving your father.” The tattoo I had gotten at Offendisma all those months ago writhed on my arm- it had been doing that since the day Cass gave her life for me, one could only guess how or why. I didn’t want Mark to find me here, so with grit teeth and a lot of pain and slow movement, I made my way out of my daughter’s suite of rooms, and pulled her door shut with finality, and as I did my water broke and I collapsed into a screaming mess and the sound of wings rushing to get me.

It was time.

20 With Love, Mama

My dear one,

I know it seems so unjust that while I have carried you in my womb for these past nine months and loved you though I have never met you- you shall never know my love once you enter this world. You will have no memories of me rocking you back and forth and singing you to sleep or know my embrace as you cry… it is a cruel world you have been born into my sweet son, a world which does not understand that a mother’s love is so vital and essential to the molding and growing of a child. I should know— for I didn’t realize how much my mother loved me until I had children of my own. I didn’t realize how she had shaped me into the woman I became and I spurned her advice when I should have kept its counsel. So, it only seems fair that I should write you some advice since I will not live beyond your gruesome birth. I have written this letter and left it with your brother, Mark and he will give it to you when the time is right.

I have aptly named you, Michael, for you are named after God’s Archangel, Michael who was pivotal in the war. War is coming, Michael, in your lifetime, I feel it’s brooding, hear it whispering at me throughout time. Time, oh my son, something has gone wrong with time- I wish I could have discovered how or why before I passed from this life to the next, but I leave you with this riddle. There was a war at the beginning, when the world was young and I was fresh, the first time I lived, when I gave birth to your brothers, Mark and Christopher- trust them only, my dear son. This war I knew of before I died, it was just starting and yet it is not contained in any of the world’s history books- someone has hidden it, and you and your brothers and their trusted friends must discover what happened to it for then and only then may you figure out how to stop it from happening again. This war will shatter humanity, should it be unleashed, and will drag humans, Nephilim and vampires into battle. Armageddon, yes, it will be called so, a time when the Nephilim again take to sword and shield against their brethren the vampires, and it is all my fault! But you, my dear one, must not fight in this war— for you are different from your Nephilim brothers, you are human, vampire and half Nephilim— and it wouldn’t be right for you to choose a side when both of their bloodlines lie within you. I cannot explain how this came to be, but if everything goes to plan, I will see you again my child— and all will be made clear. If not, then you will have this letter and it shall serve in my stead.

Your Father is an evil man— and he wishes to reclaim earth for his own, to slaughter the humans and every other supernatural being that walks the face of the earth— in vengeance of my love, in vengeance towards being cast from heaven. Once his forces are strong enough he will do this— he must not be allowed to take back heaven, or create hell on earth. You and those who fight for what is good, pure and right must stop this. Find your siblings, your vampire siblings, you will know them when you see them, not even Mark knows of them, and you must convince your brother Mark— look to the Fae, you will have help as long as you ask for it.

My part in your story is small, and soon it will be at an end— I leave you with this thought, that I love you, and that must be enough. I know you might have many questions, more questions than I have been able to answer. Trust your heart— for you do have one. I have given you all the best parts of myself— I take none to the grave. Oh my dear one, time is growing short. I feel you moving within me and sense my time has come. Do not hate me for leaving you. I would not do so if I had the power— but alas, I must go so you can live. I give this letter to Mark now, with the knowledge that someday you will read these words and know me— and my heart for you.

With all my love, Mama.

---

Mother had given me a letter for Michael to read when he reached the right age, if he had questions about her- if she didn’t survive her plan. I had told her she didn’t need to do so- reminded her that even if she did survive, we didn’t know if I could keep this baby, my hybrid brother, alive long enough for him to grow into a man, to be able to read her words. Father was going to be furious, when he realized she had allowed Nephilim blood to be tainted with vampire blood… he might go as far as killing his own son- which I had never seen him do. If father was angry he merely sent us far away to another continent for a few hundred years and kept us busy, maintaining the ‘peace’ between humans, vampires, Fae, and whatever or whoever else caused problems. I sighed as I thought of it, knowing that some of my race were also responsible for world catastrophes, like genocides, wars and civil unrest. Yes, the goal was to keep the supernatural world hidden, but our agenda with the rest of humanity lived in a grey area- and some of my Nephilim cousins hated humans. I took the letter and hid it in my suite of rooms under St. Mary’s where I knew no one would dare to look, no one except Topher, and only if he had reason to doubt my loyalties to my race. The letter hidden, I slumped onto my bed and rubbed my temples, closing my eyes, trying to not give in to the instability of my mind. Ever since marking Annabelle and not moving forward with the rest of it- the taking etc. I had been getting headaches. I hadn’t told anyone, not Topher, not father. I’d been having strange dreams of men in white, telling me there was a higher path, higher calling for my life- that and war was coming, it was coming again… I had been just a child when the war had broken out in earnest. Topher and I had been so young that neither of us remembered what happened, only that Father had gone out of a cave one day looking like he had when we’d been in Istanbul- and when he returned, he had looked the way he did now- red blood rimmed eyes and pasty pale skin, with jet black hair and oily black wings- which smelt faintly of sulfur. I shivered, what had happened in between? And why could I only remember from that moment, living here, under St. Mary’s Cathedral?

My head pounded now, and I shook, feeling like I might vomit right then and there. I needed air- fresh air. I sat up and blinked, the room going in and out of focus. How long had it been since I’d marked Annabelle? I started counting back the months- as I pushed myself up off my bed and stumbled towards the sitting room. “One, two…” I frowned, “six, nine…” I paused and my fingers clenched the doorframe to my sitting room. “One year?” My knees shook, and it was all I could do to not collapse as I dry heaved, nothing but air escaping my body.

“Having a little trouble there bro?” Topher’s cold voice cut across my sitting room, and I looked up and saw him watching me, his arms crossed, looking for all the world like he might gut me or anyone who got in his way and pissed him off.

“Ahh, brother, making yourself at home in my sitting room?”

There was a soft breeze, and then Topher’s cool arms around me as he draped me over his shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes. “Dude, ever since crossing paths with that djinn, you haven’t been doing so hot. You’re burning up.”

I knew it was less to do with crossing paths with Abrham and more to do with fighting the mating bond of the mark with Annabelle, but I didn’t want Topher to know how it was wrecking me. I wasn’t even sure he knew I had marked Annabelle… not sure who he had met yet, at Acroft. “Naw, dude. I’m fine.” I tossed him a grin. “Just need a little outside air, if you know what I mean.”

Topher rolled his eyes and snorted. “Sure.”

“And while it pains me to admit it- I need you to help me get there.” I whispered, hating that I looked so weak in front of my brother, he was never going to let me live this down.

For a moment I wasn’t sure if Topher was going to drop me and leave me in a pile on the floor for someone else to deal with or if he was going to help me, all I could hear was his breathing, I didn’t dare look at him.

“Please?”

“Fine.” I heard the rush of wings, and then as if I was weightless as Topher flew us out of my suites down the hallway and up into the church. It was only once we were on the doorsteps of St. Mary’s, he put me on my feet, his arm still around my shoulders as he helped me walk down the steps, and led me to a stone bench where we sat and stared into the evening sky, and beyond that the lights of the city. “Better?”

I darted a look at my brother, he looked serious, and more irritated than normal. I nodded as my lungs breathed in cool outdoor air, greedily gasping in the freshness, the richness of how alive the night was. We sat in thick silence, the crickets singing, frogs chirping, trees swaying in the evening breeze. The cemetery was empty this evening, and the tombstones cast long dark shadows that creeped closer to us as the minutes went on, and the moon gleamed brighter.

“Full moon.” Topher all but spat, breaking the silence between us. I got his meaning, the werewolves would be out in the woods tonight getting high, or stirring up trouble, drinking, hunting or just causing general chaos.

“Are you going out on patrol?”

Topher grunted. “I can’t. I was going to ask you, but you’d be as useless subduing a werewolf tonight as a newborn Nephilim.”

I shivered, my once sweaty body now cold in the outdoor air, and I tried not to let Topher know how worried I was about mother. “Gee, thanks.” I paused, “going somewhere?”

Topher nodded, “Father and I received a message from one of our half siblings- someone, and he wouldn’t get specific over the phone, someone blew something up in… I actually can’t tell you where. Needless to say, there were witnesses, human witnesses who witnessed Nephilim flying away from the destruction.”

Humans witnessing a Nephilim? That hadn’t happened in a century at least. “What will happen to them?” I whispered, feeling vaguely disquieted.

“Father will do what father does best- he will erase their minds, so no memory of our kind remains, and they can go back to their ignorant human lives.”

I heard the hate in Topher’s voice, it frightened me. “Do you hate them so much?” I thought about Cassandra, not my mother but her last descendant and about her family. I thought about Annabelle and her parents, and the human students like Mel, who I had interacted with over the hundreds of years I had attended Acroft. I had no qualms with them, they lived out their lives in bursts of color, because they only had one life, only could live as long as one hundred and twenty years- as God had decreed… and by the time they often got there, they didn’t want to live anymore, the vestige of their youth long gone, replaced by aching shriveled bodies that only could remember the pleasures of their younger years.

“I don’t know brother. I have never met one who has swayed me.” Topher sighed.

“Yet, brother, and one day you might.”

“We’re catching a plane in an hour, father is already at the airport. I have to go soon.” Topher intoned, ignoring me.

“Then go.”

“I worry about you brother, you touched Holy scrolls, you were on fire- our powers were stripped from the cherubim swords… you aren’t sleeping, barely eating and all you seem to do is take care of mother.”

I glared at him.

“Which is not a bad thing! Taking care of mother that is…” Topher threw his hands up defensively. “I just mean, have your powers even returned?”

“Have yours?” I spat back.

“Look, you and I both know that whatever power scorched us through that sword stripped us of our powers. I haven’t been able to feel them since we got back, although my sigils are moving again as if I could just reach out and grasp some of my power… just barely.” Topher stared off into the dark of the cemetery. “I finally have the use of my wings again, as you must have noticed.”

“I-I… I can use my wings.” I choked out. “The rest?” I pulled up my tee shirt, to show Topher the whorls and markings on my chest, where they sat still and lifeless, Topher hissed. I still wasn’t sure if my marks were lifeless because of the sword or something else, and it was the thought of something else that worried me. I dropped my shirt letting my sigils hide from my brother’s prying eyes, and stared up at the few twinkling stars above. “Have you learned more about the sword or Amaar?”

“I have been coming up with dead ends. Not much is known about the swords- and Amaar? Amaar must be a very well kept secret. I might have to go read the dead sea scrolls.”

I tried not to look shocked, my brother had never shown an interest in reading religious texts, it had always fallen on me to do so when father asked us to research or when we were sent out to do my father’s bidding. I enjoyed sitting in still rooms with my hands in cloth gloves turning pages of manuscripts and scrolls so ancient and yet not as old as I was. It reminded me what the world treasured; truth, hope, faith and love. There was light on those pages that no one could see- the Greek and Aremeic and Hebrew words speaking more than common English ever could. Where were the dead sea scrolls even kept these days? Probably not anywhere that Topher would want to go or could get access to without his powers.

“Or perhaps I’ll use the ‘Sons of Thunder’ sigil and make Abrham talk to me. Fool of a djinn, messing with a Nephilim.”

“Leave him alone, Topher! Abrham has Amaar, an angel on his side.”

“And has he sent you anything at all about the content of those scrolls? Tell me, Mark, what have we learned from this quest other than the fact that you can turn yourself into a vampire, create an SUV out of thin air and wield an angelic sword?” I did not miss the sarcasm in his voice. “Oh yes, wait- and now? Now you are powerless and weak, and possibly rotting away like some human. Very good. Exactly what we wanted to happen from that little excursion. OH- and we’re keeping that hidden from dad, and the fact that we both know Cassandra is our mother- who is going to die again?”

“Toph, look-”

Topher pushed himself off the stone bench and began to pace, “perhaps I should tell father I can’t go with him, I mean he could deal with this situation with his eyes closed. You however,” Topher and I locked eyes, “you need me. We are stronger together, and right now, you are more human than Nephilim.”

“Father would get suspicious.” I tried not to cringe because right now he might be right about my frailty. “No, I will be fine. Go with father. I won’t go out on patrol while you’re away, I’ll make sure to send someone else.”

In the distance, along the curb headlights blinked. “I don’t like it.” Topher glanced towards the headlights and back at me, “that’s my uber. I have to go.” Topher reached down, and put his hand tightly on my shoulder, “please take care of yourself while I am away.”

I knew that was his way of telling me he loved me, even though he had never told me so in our long lifetime. I nodded as he gave my shoulder one more quick squeeze before he turned away and jogged off towards the waiting car. I watched him go, his shadow lengthy in the headlights, and wondered if this might be the most fortuitous situation, that mother might go into labor while father and Topher were both away. I gulped down more air as the headlights from Topher’s uber faded away, and then I heard mother’s scream.

I pushed myself up from the stone bench, the world wobbling for a moment as my legs rediscovered their strength, there was no way that I was going to be able to run right now, but fly? Pushing my own pain and weakness aside, I let my wings unfurl, reveling for a moment in their power, it was the only part of me that still felt truly like I was myself, and I flew back into the church and let myself back down into the musty underground of my home, where just a few feet down the hallway mother was collapsed on the ground, the oak door of Marissa’s rooms firmly shut behind her. I grit my teeth and sent a quick prayer up that Marissa hadn’t awakened from my mother’s scream, and then lifted her sweaty body from the cold tiled floor, cradling her into my arms. My brother thought I was weak and human? I brushed a tendril of my mother’s hair out of her face, twisted in pain and agony. This was what it looked like to be human, to experience weakness. Cassandra’s body convulsed in my arms, and her lips twitched as she moaned. I looked down the hallway, none of the Nephilim staying with us had even bothered to come down the hall to check on who had screamed or why. I silently cursed them for their hard hearts, and then with my mother safely in my arms, I flew down the maze of hallways straight to my father’s lab, which was the closest thing we had down here to a hospital-like room. Here, hopefully we would be safe from prying eyes, especially when I had to call in Violet and crew to get my mother out- if her plan worked.

I placed her body on the cool metal table, as she twisted and kicked and clawed at the air, I realized she would likely flail off the table unless she was restrained. I had noticed leather restraints attached to the corners of the table the last time I had been in here talking to father- and tried to ignore what their actual use had been for… for now, it was helpful, and to my advantage. I carefully strapped my mother down, her wrists, her ankles… and she fought against me as I did, with the strength I didn’t know she had. I was sweating by the time she was finally secured to the metal table. I used the last of my strength to use my wings to fly me to one of the large armchairs where I collapsed in a heap, my wings retracted into my being as if to say they also had had more than they could take. I pulled my silver phone from my pocket and flipped it open, dialing Violet’s number, which I had made myself memorize so no one could find her in my contacts and discover I had been talking to a vampire. The last thing I needed Topher or my father to know was that I was regularly in communication with Violet and Viktor Worthington. Violet picked up on the first ring,

“It’s time, isn’t it?”

I should have been shocked that she knew, but Violet was wired that way, she knew things as they were about to happen or were happening and she had this way of calmly controlling the situation so that emotions remained balanced. She had been the glue in my mother’s project from the start- or Viktor and I would have come to blows sooner. “Yes.” I murmured.

“Tom can’t make it, since it’s a full moon. We might need your help.”

Shit.

“Can we count on you to help us?” In the background I could hear a vehicle, doors opening, closing.

“I’ll do my best.” I said through grit teeth.

“That’s all each of us can expect Mark.” Violet paused, “We’ll head to the safe house, and make sure it’s ready. Call us when you need us, and we’ll drive to you.” The line went dead, just as Cassandra started screaming, and once she started screaming- she just didn’t stop. I felt my heart break within me.

“God, if you can hear me.” I pleaded, “a cursed Nephilim… please spare my mother. Please, let her survive. I promise, if you do- I will try my utmost to live a better life,” Annabelle’s face flitted through my mind, “with those who matter to me, who I love, and those I meet. Save her, keep my baby brother safe, keep Michael safe, from anyone who would hurt him.” I paused my mind and vision a mess, “Amen.” I pushed myself up off the chair and on shaky legs I made my way over to my mother, and took her hand as she screamed again, but this time she was not alone. I felt her fingers tighten around mine, and I knew somehow, she could sense my presence. “I love you mother.” I whispered, and there alone with my mother I wept.

21 Liquid Terror/When I Pop

When I opened my eyes, I was in Lucas’s strange little lab, where at some point Mark must have strapped me to the metal table. I had no clue how long it had been since I had collapsed outside of my daughter, Marissa’s room or how long it had been since my water had broken. I felt discombobulated and my body shook from within. I gasped, as my baby, Michael tried to stretch inside me, felt pain like I hadn’t felt since I gave birth to Mark and Topher. Michael was trapped, he needed help escaping my body, I could feel his terror, and his revulsion at not wanting to hurt me- sense his thoughts, angry and scared, pictures in my mind of what was going on his brain.

“Mark?” I whispered after my body stopped contracting. “Mark?” I tried to reach out confused, “Mark what’s going on? Where are you?” I turned my head and saw Mark, his wings a lighter grey than I had ever seen them, flying in the room, pacing without his feet even touching the floor.

“Mother?” Mark stopped his flying pacing and his feet touching the ground he stumbled over to me, eyes wide with terror, and face white as a sheet- “I’m so sorry, mother- I had to strap you down, you were… you were convulsing and screaming and tearing at your own flesh. I didn’t know what else to do.” Mark gripped my hand hard as if I was going to disappear into smoke.

My heart twisted within me and it had nothing to do with being in labor with a Nephilim hybrid baby. “Mark what is wrong with your legs?”

“Nothing mother,” He sent me a worried smile, but I knew he was lying, something wasn’t right.

I chose not to press the matter as another wave of pain filled me and I saw in my mind, little Michael gasping for air- I needed to get him out of me, or he and I would both die. My ribs ached. My lungs ached, and the restraints on my wrists were chaffing and my ankles felt bruised. “How long, how long have I been like this for?” My mouth was dry and my throat felt like it was shredded in ribbons.

“Hours.” Mark replied.

“And where is your Father?” It wasn’t like Lucas to not be hovering when the time was right. When Topher and Mark had been born, Lucas had been there, ready with a knife in hand, to help cut out the twins, but they, unlike this one, had willingly clawed their way out of me, and I had died quickly once they were born.

“He received a call,” Mark said hesitantly, “and according to Topher turned white and then after disguising himself he fled- to some hell hole probably.”

Interesting, again I sensed that Mark wasn’t telling me the full truth. I let the matter slide and wondered what had Lucas so shaken.

“Son, you’re going to have to help me.” I turned my bloodshot eyes to look at him, “can you be brave for my sake?”

Mark paled, “it depends on what you’re going to ask me to do.”

“This baby, your brother- he doesn’t want to claw his way out… he’s suffocating, and you need to help me save him.” I could see that Mark knew what I was about to suggest, fear and horror awash on his face- he squirmed and shook and grabbed my hand tightly. “I need you to do it, son. Your father and brother are conveniently away, call the team- call them now, and you do what I need you to- and then you look after your baby brother, Michael- do you understand?”

“Mother-”

“Call them, and get the knife.” I closed my eyes as yet another spasm of pain rolled over me, this one more impatient and demanding- Michael gasping for air that wasn’t there- he was going to die if we didn’t get him out. “NOW.”

I heard Mark flip his phone open, “sos,” he whispered, “it’s time. Get here, bring Violet- just do it and do it now- you have five minutes, that’s all the time we have.”

I lay there thinking about Mel and Mariah and Ray- and their little boy… memories I’d finally let myself indulge in over my pregnancy, I felt tears slip down my face as I wept for the life Cass never had, and for the life I’d never had and for my children who had never known a true mother… and I heard Mark sharpening a knife.

“Why mother? Why can’t he do it the way all of us have done?”

“Your brother, Michael is different, he wants to come out top side- and hurt me as little as possible.”

Mark snorted, “hurt you as little as possible? He’s going to kill you!”

I chose to ignore his comment and continued quickly so that I could say what I needed to before pain overwhelmed me again, “you need to make an incision so he can come out, and you better do it soon- otherwise there won’t be much of me left to save, and he, Michael will be dead.”

Mark’s eyes went big and round and I felt him put the knife on me, but him cutting my flesh was nothing compared to the vampire Nephilim that was trying to stretch his wings and escape my womb. Blood pooled where Mark cut me, but once he started it was as if he could sense where his brother was and how he needed to escape, his cuts became deeper and more precise.

“I see a wing!” Mark gasped, his face just in my peripherals. “He’s almost out, mother, I promise! Hang on, Michael, hang in there mom!”

But I was so tired, I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on- there was so much blood. I closed my eyes, I would try to hang on until Michael was born. Somewhere in the room I heard voices drifting at me through the wall of my pain and almost unconsciousness.

“Oh my God!” Viktor exclaimed.

“There’s so much blood.” Violet whispered, taking my hand.

“There’s too much blood!” Viktor hissed.

A loud cry bellowed through the room. My little Michael, he was finally born, he was alive. He was safe. I felt a small smile play on my lips, the only part of my body I could still feel, I had done my duty well. Now, in order to break the curse and my marriage to Lucas, the devil once and for all I needed to die.

“Get him out of here Mark!” I heard, and all went quiet.

---

“Hello?” My voice echoed across the endless void, if I had to guess I was at the death bit. I looked down and saw my reflection. I appeared to be standing on a sea of glass, which was reflecting the blackness of the void upward to make the space appear even more voluminous. Funny how minutes before I had looked so different than I appeared now. I put my hands on my abdomen, it was flat, there was nothing there to remind me that I had just given birth to my vampire Nephilim baby. I was wearing a red dress, and my hair was in a long braid down my back. “What?” Oh, yeah I had taken Cass’ place as a scarlet woman. “Where am I?” I puzzled softly to myself.

“You are in the void— the space between the living world and the afterworld.”

I jumped, and looked up from my reflection to see an exact copy of myself standing before me. “Cass?”

“Yes.”

It was odd to see her standing there in front of me, when the last time I’d seen her in my mind, she had looked so weak, now she looked healthy, strong- alive, but to see her standing there in front of me, knowing I could reach out and touch her as if none of that had happened, was trippy. I reached out and grasped her forearms and she grasped mine and for a moment we just stood there, somehow knowing that between the two of us, we had done it- we had finally broken the curse that God had put on me and my descendants. What was I to say now, ‘thank you,’ for bringing me back, for trusting me, for…“Why am I here?”

“This is where we all have been since the beginning, well since we’ve died— me most recently-” she paused and blushed and I remembered her fading into me as I looked down at our clasped arms. “Cursed to wander, to sleep, to roam the darkness of this voice but never rest until the curse was lifted.” Cass dropped my arms, but not before giving them a little squeeze. “Now that you are back here, the number is complete- the curse is finally broken.”

Finally.” I murmured, before realizing what Cass had just said, “what do you mean ‘we’?” I looked around the space one more time, as far as I could see Cass and I were the only ones visible in the void.

“I mean we.” Cass made a wide swoop of her arms, gesturing at the void, and as she did, more and more versions of myself lit up and began walking towards us. “They made me their spokeswoman since I am the one you know best.”

I shivered as the void revealed more and more versions of me, copies of the original Cassandra, and in what seemed like minutes we were surrounded in a sea of red dresses— until I was so claustrophobic I could barely breathe. I had known he was evil- but to see this many of my descendants gathered in one place, it was like I was looking at a mass grave.

“Hello.” I whispered to the masses.

There was a murmuring of replies, which sounded like the rolling waves of the ocean.

“Thanks to you, we’re free.” Cass whispered, once all the voices had stopped.

I blinked a few times all I could see were smiling faces, nodding in agreement to Cass’ statement. “Thanks not to me-” I pushed back, “thanks to us.”

Cass blinked tears, and I felt my own welling up within me. “Yes, thanks to us.”

The sea of women with brown hair and violet eyes in red dresses seemed to dance, looking almost like a sea of blood. I shivered suddenly feeling ill. Lucas had to pay for this treachery, I would make him pay. I took a deep breath, and slowly let it out, trying to dispel the nausea that filled me. “My dear daughters, your deaths will not be in vain. I will make him suffer. Now it is time to rest, time to move on, from this void into the afterlife- where you will finally find peace. Go now, be free.Shalom.” I muttered. My words had a strange effect— one by one the women began to disappear until I was standing with Cass and a woman who didn’t look like me, but I’d have known her anywhere. “Mom?” I blinked and watched Cass look from my mother to me. “What is going on? Did God put you here? Did I accidentally curse you too?”

“No, my beautiful, headstrong, lovely girl. I chose to be here to bring comfort to your daughter and their daughters.” My mother, Eve, walked gracefully towards me, a gown of white seemed to float around her as she moved- I felt so dirty in comparison that I wanted to run away, I took a step back from her as she reached out to grab me.

“I am not good, mama.” I choked out. “Look at the damage I have done all because-”

“Shhhh, my little one.” She pulled me into her arms and I collapsed, tears spilling down my face. When was the last time that she had held me in her arms like this? How many thousands of years ago? “Do not make the mistake of thinking you are the only one who has been cursed.”

I remembered at that moment how she had told me why her and father had been kicked out of the garden, our garden.

“Yes,” she whispered as she kissed the top of my head, “it was my fault- Adam didn’t stop me even though he was there… We were both cursed, but it was my fault for believing the serpent’s lies.”

Yes, Lucifer’s lies, how well I knew them.

“And what do we do?” She asked me softly, knowing I knew the answer.

“We live on.” I looked up at her hazel eyes, and soft face, trying to memorize every line. “I have a daughter who looks just like you, mama.” I thought of Marissa and how she was not only a replica of me, but of my mother.

“As she should, for she is a daughter of Eve.” My mother stroked my cheek, wiping away my tears. “Take care of her, love her-”

I noticed she didn’t even ask how she was alive, it was like she knew I had carried Marcus’ vampire children. I nodded, “I will try, mama.”

Eve, my mother, released me, and gently pushed me back. I gasped as I looked at her, her once white dress was now red, and I quickly glanced down at my own dress, it was no longer red, but white. My mother took my hands in her own and squeezed them. “We do this and much more for our children, do we not?” She dropped my hands.

“I’m so sorry, mama.”

“So am I my daughter.”

Cass cleared her throat, and I remembered we had a witness.

“Take care of my mother, Cass?”

Cass nodded, and linked elbows with my mother. “It’s almost time, Cassandra.” Cass’ voice cut through the void and brought me back to the present, back to my plan.

“Thank you, Cass, for everything.”

“Time is shifting once again Cassandra,” my mother simply stated, “very soon another war will again cover the world. There will be no hiding it or erasing it this time. Your children, my children will need you when the time comes.”

Yes, the time locked war- I still needed to find out what had happened in the past, so I could understand the present. “Mother, what of this being of light? Is it me?”

My mother looked at Cass and they both looked back at me, “I have not been able to discover who this being of light is- only that she is tied to you and your life. Find her.”

“Her?”

“That is all I know, my love. Read the prophecies, look to the scrolls.”

A bright light appeared, sending brilliant prisms of light down the glass floor, it was so bright I had to squint.

“Someday I hope I will see you again, daughter.” My mother smiled at me, her body engulfed in colors being thrown around her, making her and Cass glow. I knew she was lying for my sake, because if I lived, my life from here on out would be the cursed half life, the immortal life of a vampire… there were no pearly gates out there for me. “I love you.”

I nodded. “I love you too.”

“Now don’t forget,” She began.

“A dream is a dream.” I whispered.

“But we make our own futures.” Cass finished.

Cass and my mother smiled at me and turned and walked into the tunnel of light, their shadows mingling with the beautiful prims of color as they walked away from me. I wanted to join them but knew I couldn’t and suddenly I was alone and terror filled me. The tunnel of light faded, leaving behind a soft glow that lit up the void, I was no longer in the dark. The curse on my family was broken, but would I survive to fight on, or would I be stuck here, in the void forever? I needed to get out of here, I was done being dead, I’d been dead for over six thousand years, it was time to live.

---

I stared at the winged Nephilim screaming in my arms- his wings were pure white, well dad was certainly going to love that- and when he opened his eyes to look at his surroundings, they were violet, the same color as my mothers… my mother who was dying on the table. I heard her or perhaps Viktor cut the leather straps off my mother’s wrists and ankles as I stared at my baby brother, Michael.

“Please, save her Violet.” I whispered under the wails of my infant brother and the moans of my dying mother. I tried to move, but I felt frozen to the spot, unsure about what to do. I needed to get Michael out of here, to someone safe, but I also was weak and worried about my mother’s survival.

“Mark, I said to get out of here!” Viktor shouted at me for what felt like the enth time.

I looked from Michael to my mother and then at Violet. I watched as Violet took a syringe filled with blood and stabbed it into my mother’s heart. We all waited, even my blood covered baby brother, Michael, waited, and after what felt like a very tense few minutes, a miracle. I watched my mother’s skin begin to start to heal itself.

“It’s working,” Violet whispered, and with shock she looked up at first Viktor and then me, almost as if she hadn’t believed that this plan had really had any hope of succeeding in the first place.

I let out a sigh I hadn’t realized I had been holding and then who I was and where I was took over. “Get her out of here-”

Viktor and Violet stared at me, confused.

“Guys, you don’t understand.” Panic filled me, I had let them in- let in my ‘enemies’ into my home- they weren’t supposed to know who my father was much less that he was alive- I had gotten sloppy in my worry for my mother. “Please, leave. If my father comes home…”

I heard wings in the hallway and all three of us froze. It wasn’t my father or Topher, they were on a plane to only God knew where, but if any of the Nephilim who lived here caught Viktor or Violet in my father’s study with me- they would be punished severely as I would, since I was with them, even though I was my father’s son.

“Listen very carefully,” I said as calmly as I could, “you’ll wait here, I’ll go check it out, tell whoever it is m-Cassandra has had her baby, I’ll pass him off to one of my brother’s to go wash and feed and then while they are all distracted, you have to leave, and you have to take Marissa with you.”

“That’s a lot of ‘have to’s’, Mark.” Viktor intoned in a way that said he wasn’t very pleased with how I was handling the situation.

Violet put her hand on Viktor’s shoulder, “Go easy on him, can’t you see he’s shaken? It hasn’t been an easy day for any of us.”

Viktor sighed and nodded, and my wings burst out of me and I flew from the room, leaving my transitioning mother with two vampires. I shivered remembering how it felt to be one, when I had used my powers- soon my own mother would be stuck like that forever. I looked down in my arms at my sobbing baby brother, and my heart broke for him, “someday, someday I swear, you will know her- our mother.” Michael stopped crying and opened his eyes as if he had understood me, his vibrant violet eyes, my mother’s eyes, staring into my face, intuitively, curiously. Did he understand what I had just told him? I bit back a sob and headed down a new pathway, where I almost flew into one of my visiting half brothers.

“Mark?” He asked, taking in the sobbing Nephilim child and my own blood covered clothing.

“Cassandra had her baby.” I held him out to my half brother who took him gingerly, although looking a little disgusted. “She died. I am going to dispose of her body- best not to let father return home to a corpse.”

“Of course.” I watched my brother’s eyes narrow, as he took in the white wings. “This will raise a lot of questions, Mark.”

“His name is Michael.” I hissed ignoring his comment about my little brother’s wings. “Take him and wash him off. There are blankets and clothes that Cassandra gathered for him in her suite- as well as a large storage of goat milk.”

“And you?”

“I will take care of myself as soon as I have taken care of m-Cassandra.” I forced myself to say.

My half brother wandered away, casting questioning looks over his shoulders at me- that was going to be a problem I would have to deal with later. Once my half brother and Michael were out of sight and earshot I flew back to the lab, where Viktor and Violet were waiting. I landed on my feet with a thud and moaned, my wings folding in behind me- my strength was almost gone, but I didn’t want or need either Viktor or Violet to know that- though the latter had probably already guessed I was sapped of strength.

“What took so long?” Viktor hissed.

“Boys, play nice.” Violet snapped, but she looked at me now with unblinking eyes, and a knowing look, pursing her lips as I gingerly walked over to the table and picked up the now less broken corpse of my mother.

“We have to get her out of here now, before anyone can see that she is healing.”

“I can do it faster.” Viktor hissed, unfortunately he was right, but there was no wat I was going to admit that.

“No, I need you two to go grab Marissa, I’ll carry her out.” I snapped. I was pretty sure I had just enough energy to fly her out. “Do you need help remembering the way?”

Violet shook her head, “I know the way, come on Vik-” she tossed me a look full of compassion and then guided Viktor out of the room and heard them take off running and then were gone.

I cradled my mother to my chest, she had done it, she really had- and that meant, if she could, then so could Annabelle. I moaned and pulled my mother closer to me. I couldn’t avoid Annabelle for much longer, but having Topher back at the school and the distance had helped, even if just a little. I would have to figure that out soon- or I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed, protect my brother, Michael or work on deciphering the prophecies surrounding my mother.

“Focus Mark,” I murmured, “I love you mama,” I kissed her forehead one last time and then let my wings unfurl and flew her out of St. Mary’s and into the cold dark of night.

22 Epilogue: Requiem

I gasped, and the echo of it reverberated through my entire being. I could see the sound waves from my breath vibrate away from me as if I was a pebble that had been dropped into a very large pond. The darkness around me was alive, I could feel it, pulsating around me, it was the only way I knew I wasn’t in the void of the in between anymore. No, this was something else. I sat up and looked around this darkness and saw eyes gleaming at me, green eyes, blue eyes, eyes that were brown and wreathed in red- they watched me, never drawing too near, but blinking all the same.

“Go away!” I screamed into the darkness, and as if to pacify me, a door appeared a few steps in front of me. It was a red door, and I didn’t know if I should ignore it, or if I was brave enough to face whatever lay behind it, only that if I didn’t make a choice I might be stuck in this nightmare forever. I took a deep breath and reminded myself of who I was- not Lucifer’s idea of me, or Cass’ or anyone else for that matter, but who I was- I was Cassandra, daughter of Eve.

I took a step forward and let my hand grab the golden door knob, and I twisted it slowly, so far- no monsters, and pushed it open, immediately finding myself falling through smoke and ash and soot into hell. I tried to hold onto the door only to have it disappear as soon as I had fallen into it, leaving nothing but the black cavernous rock of a sky over me. I fell towards the lake of fire below, terror gripping at me- and just before my body hit the flames, I saw pale arms reach into the blur of my fall and grasp me to a cool chest, and the sensation of falling and the blur of smoke and ash stopped as he lifted me away from the flames, his big black wings creating a backdraft as we flew up and up and landed on the black marble landing of the tower I’d spent the last six thousand years wasting away in.

Lucifer’s arms put me gently down, and I immediately pushed away from his cool white skin, and scrambled back against the black marble wall. I didn’t, couldn’t look at him like this- pale, eyes rimmed with blood, his black Fallen wings… neither of us spoke, but I could feel his anger, his rage. I shook, I was supposed to be done with him, he was supposed to think I was dead. Was he going to lock me up in this tower for another six thousand years?

“You betrayed me.” He finally hissed.

Betrayed him? I scowled and looked up into his deathly pale face, with his eyes wreathed in blood. “I hate you.”

He didn’t reply, he just stood there with his arms crossed looking like a child who is about to have a temper tantrum.

“Did you expect differently, after murdering all the women in my family, can you blame me?” A wave of fire hit me and I screamed. “You belong here you murdering, deceiving, lying COWARD! I did my job! I let you use my body, I might have even let myself like it- after all, I was alone for six thousand bloody years and, OW!” Again a wave of fire rolled over me, I grit my teeth. “I gave you your Nephilim child, and now even in death you won’t let me rest!”

“But are you dead?”

I looked down at my arm, the red hand print was gone from my arm. “Look, see for yourself.” I shook my arm at him, as another wave of fire hit my body. “If that cursed mark is gone, then I am dead!” I closed my eyes, the pain bit me, my flesh and bones ached, the fire raged in them so, and in my head I saw Violet with a syringe of her own blood, thrusting it into my heart and I knew. It wasn’t Lucifer sending waves of fire upon me, for if he had, I would have seen them- the fire was Violet’s blood poisoning my human blood, I was becoming a vampire, being reborn. Betrayed Luc? Yes, I had betrayed him, but he was only fishing, he didn’t understand why he could still sense my soul- I had been fighting against the blood, and I needed to give in. My eyes flew open and I stared at Lucifer one last time, “Rot in hell darling, I hear it was made especially for you.” And before Lucifer could stop me or thwart me, I threw myself off the parapet into the flames, I was already on fire, and if I was lucky, I would fly away a butterfly after this metamorphosis.

---

Should she look like that? I asked for the hundredth time, as I paced, albeit very clumsily, in Viktor and Violet’s safe house hidden away in the roof of Plumanara. My legs shuddered under me, begging me to sit down but I couldn’t. I tried not to let my anxiety control me, but I had just booked it from St. Mary’s with my mother’s body after dumping my baby brother who had pure white wings into the arms of a half sibling with no explanation. There were bound to be questions- I had known that from the look on my half brother’s face and not just about Cassandra, but about Michael. There had never been a Nephilim baby born with white wings, ever- and if they looked at him too closely would they notice his other hybrid features? What would my father do when he realized his last son from Cassandra was half vampire… I shuddered. My wings popped out from behind me, and fluttered softly- I hadn’t had as much control of my wings in the last few months, which was one of the many reasons I was grateful Topher had taken up my place at Acroft again this year.

“Woah, dude. A little warning when you do that?” Viktor mumbled, and grabbed a few glass vases filled with hydrangeas and spider mums of various colors off a counter near where my wings fluttered. “I’ve never seen a Nephilim’s wings out before-” Viktor put the vases down and nodded at me with a begrudging smile. “Must be super dope being able to have wings.”

“Said one monster to another.” I said through gritted teeth as if I didn’t know we both disliked each other’s kind of ‘monster.’ I took a step away from him to avoid his scent, Topher was right, I had never noticed it before, but vampires smelt bad.

“Look, it was you who suggested Violet take Marissa straight to Worthington Manor- not me. AND since you did, we’re both going to have to deal with each other, without her as a buffer. Kay? Let’s just not try to kill one another in the process. I mean hey- I saw your dad’s lab- you’re currently standing in my safe house, that NO Nephilim is supposed to know about, so tit for tat- right?”

I grunted, looking down at my mother’s now almost completely healed body lying on the couch. Violet had mercifully had a change of clothes for her ready, so I didn’t have to stare at her covered in blood- and Viktor had generously offered me a pair of jeans and spare tee to put on- We had burnt the blood soaked clothing in a fire. My eyes drifted to where the Steinheart family crest swirled on my mother’s arm. I tried not to ask questions, but I couldn’t stop staring and wondering what she was hiding from me- what my father was hiding from me. As much as I had hidden from both of them?

“Wow, you must really hate us.” Viktor sighed as he slid onto an arm chair facing the couch my mother was lying on. “Come, sit. Now we wait, and no- I don’t know for how long, if you were going to ask me, and NO I have no clue why Cassandra has that specific tattoo although I know she went with Violet to get a tattoo, and NO I have no clue why it’s acting like she was born with it- only pure bloods have living tattoos, see?” Viktor pulled up the arm of his tee and showed me a rose with ivy, “that is what I call a birthmark, and it doesn’t move.”

“Well, aren’t you the man with all the answers!” I hissed through my teeth before folding my wings away and going to sit on the arm chair beside Viktor.

“I live to serve.” Viktor mocked, giving me a fake salute. “So grey wings- hey? I mean, like, really light grey, thats like almost white dude, I thought-”

“Do you ever stop talking?”

“Just passing the time, friend.” Viktor laughed as he saw my scowl deepen.

“Fine, friend. Yes, I have grey wings.”

“No, you almost have white wings, I don’t know if you could call them grey.”

As if on cue my wings popped back out and I looked at my wings fluttering about me, and tried to be nonchalant about the fact that I had almost no control over them but to check their color… they definitely looked lighter than the last time, my normally dark grey wings were so light, I almost passed out. What was going on with me? What had Amaar done to me? And had she or he or they done the same thing to Topher?

“Do most Nephilim have grey wings?”

I squirmed, this felt like an interrogation even though I knew Viktor was actually dumber than a bolt and just trying to pass the time, or perhaps he was genuinely curious. “No. Most have black wings.”

“Interesting, and yours are barely even grey at all like, WOW, almost angel like.”

Why did he have to poke me about my almost white wings? I felt ill- if he knew I had marked a human girl, he wouldn’t be calling me ‘angel like.’ Again I thought of Amaar- and wondered if I could track her or him down.

“So, Topher’s must be the same as yours, right? I mean, since you’re twins and all.”

“No.” I saw Topher’s wings in my mind, I hadn’t seen them in forever, since the last time he had flown me out of St. Mary’s I had almost been blacked out… but the last time I had seen his wings, they had been jet black. I shivered, my eyes not leaving my mother, who had started to twitch and moan in her unconsciousness. “What is happening to her?”

“She- the blood from Violet is making its way through her system, being pumped through each blood vessel, each artery and obliterating any human blood that remains.”

It sounded awful. “Is it painful?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” Viktor replied, sounding a little insulted, “I was born this way,” he paused, “but my father,”

I cringed, I knew the story. Juliette Steinheart had fallen in love with a human and turned him into a vampire, the council had not existed then- and even if it had, I grunted. I had seen and heard stories of a hundred if not more being turned and the council turning a blind eye to it… no, the council only really sent us out to enforce the no turning policy on highly proficient and affluent families, not some mixed blood who decided to turn their boyfriend or girlfriend into a vampire.

“My father says it feels like fire is running through your veins- like your whole being is being burned, well, at least the human portion.” Viktor looked horrified that someone would willingly choose that, choose death by fire, in that he and I could see eye to eye on.

“Will your father ask a lot of questions, about Cassandra, about Michael and his white wings and possibly other traits we haven’t seen yet?”

I flipped my silver phone out and stared at it- so far no messages. “Probably.” And I didn’t have a clue how to answer any of them. I flipped my phone open and shut, and open. “Cassandra wants to make sure that Michael is protected. If Michael is ever threatened… Will you promise to take him in?”

“You ask a lot, Nephilim.” Viktor said softly.

I casually glanced at him. He, like me, had been watching Cassandra very closely, as if he had a vested interest in her, and it bothered me, but I knew it was not the right time to ask him about it.

“I will do everything in my power to keep him safe.”

---

The flames moved through me, and at first I wasn’t sure I had done the right thing, throwing myself into the fire- what with Lucifer screaming behind me, but the lake of fire and Lucifer vanished as I fell and ended up standing in a beautiful garden, my garden. I could still feel the fire of Violet’s blood running through me, but it was much duller of an ache than it had been at first- I was almost reborn. I looked around wondering what this illusion would contain for certainly the hell I had fallen into must have been just that, otherwise I would not be standing here now.

I took a deep breath, and was about to walk over to the stream when I saw him- his broad back turned ever so slightly from me, but I knew him, and if he turned to face me his green eyes would sear into my soul.

“Marcus?”

As he turned, I felt the illusion begin to give way, the garden fading, I just barely saw his eyes, full of shock, as he took me in before the vision was gone.

“Beloved?”

I sat up and my eyes flew open. The dream or vision or whatever it was, was gone along with the image of Marcus and it took me a minute to realize where I was, and that Mark and Viktor had jumped to their feet the moment I had moved. Everything was too bright, too loud, and Mark quite literally stank. “Oh, my God, Mark- when was the last time you-” I remembered suddenly that he had been carrying me and we had both been covered in blood, that must be why he stank so much.

Viktor laughed, Mark looked like he might punch him, and I felt the need to apologize for some reason.

“Cassandra, you weren’t being rude, Nephilim just smell bad, in fact every supernatural has their own scent- some charming, like the Fae, others putrid like shapeshifters and werewolves.

“Sorry Mark.”

Mark looked relieved to see me ‘not dead’ but I could also see that he was extremely uncomfortable with what I had become, if not more than a little worried. “If it helps, you stink too.” Mark murmured. “I should go.” He made to leave and in an instant I was standing before him giving him a tight hug. “A little tight there, Cassandra.” He growled.

I released him, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

Mark tossed a withering look at Viktor, who just chuckled. “She doesn’t know her own strength yet- but she will. Violet and I will make sure she stays safe, and that she learns how to be natural around humans.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I squealed.

“It means your humanity has slipped away.” I could almost hear Mark’s silent addition of ‘mother’ onto his statement. “Now, this secret-” Mark gestured at everything around us, “is your secret too, and if you break it- I or Topher or someone like that will have to come deal with you.” His words were calm, cool and calculated, I knew he was trying to scare me, remind me I had chosen this, but I was glad I had, and Marcus- he knew I was alive. It was worth the risk.

“And Annabelle?” I asked, my voice sounding and feeling foreign in my mouth.

Mark ruffled my brown hair and tried to smile. “I know my duty.” Mark nodded at Viktor and began making his way to the safe house door.

“Remember Mark, a dream is a dream but-”

“We make our own futures.” I heard him mutter as he swung the door open and left, the flutter of his wings carrying him down the hall.

I prayed that he would learn to believe it. I had never believed it more, looked down at the swirling rose and thorns tattoo.

“What now, auntie?” Viktor asked as both of us stared down the hallway at the large wooden door listening to Mark’s heartbeat fade away as he fled.

“Now my dear nephew, we fight.” Against darkness, against evil, and hopefully save some lives and if we were very lucky, we would all survive the tornado that I could sense coming our way. “We fight, and we survive.”

---

I flew down the hallway, down the stairs, out the secret entry and into the alleyway outside Plumanara, my heart thundering in my chest, my wings only folding in once I was in the alleyway. I keeled over and puked, a few Fae teens laughing at me as they walked by,

“Nephilim had too much to drink!” A few of them called out or made similar remarks.

My mother. A vampire. I let the Fae mock me, ignoring the insult, as my brother never would. I straightened up and stumbled quickly away from my own stench, and would have kept stumbling along, stalking into the night if not for a gentle voice calling out after me.

“Mark? Mark, is that you? Are you okay?”

“Annabelle?”

Her blonde hair under the street lone streetlight shone platinum, and her dark brown eyes glimmered like deep mysterious pools- I caught the concern on her face and wondered if I really looked like trash. She was breathless when she caught up with me.

“Annabelle what are you doing here?”

“Oh, I was with some friends after school and we decided to come and hang out- I know you don’t approve of Plumanara- and normally we would have just gone to a house party, but” she shrugged, “Jill is out of town and we normally use her house, and we DID want to invite you but you and your brother have been avoiding me, so, when they suggested we go to Plumanara, I agreed.”

Sometimes I wondered if Annabelle remembered to breathe when she spoke. I blinked and suddenly felt sheepish; I had totally lost track of what month it was. I mentally counted down in my brain, it was April already. Where had almost half a year gone?

“On a school night?” I asked, a little surprised, what day was it anyway?

“It’s Friday, silly goose.” She gently punched my arm, teasingly.

“Right.” I wanted to lean into her scent, and drink her in.

“Are you sure you’re, okay?”

I tried for what felt like the hundredth time that day to smile and hoped that Annabelle didn’t notice. “I’m okay.” I paused somewhat hesitantly, good God, I wanted to take her right then and there. “I don’t mean to ignore you.” I murmured. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” In the darkness I couldn’t tell if she was blushing or not.

For a moment it was completely silent between us- and I wondered if she knew, if she knew she was mine… if she could feel the mark I had put on her skin.

“Well, I have to get back to my friends.” Annabelle whispered. “Text me soon?”

I nodded. Now Annabelle’s number was one I had saved in my phone, and I didn’t care if Topher knew about it, after all, he didn’t really care about humans. I watched her flounce back to where a group of teens of various supernatural backgrounds waited for her in the line to get into Plumanara. It was what it should be, I reminded myself, a place where humans and supernaturals could learn to co-exist and maybe even be friends. The utopian dream that was always so close to shattering. I’d have to lean in earnest into my bond with Annabelle soon- still the fact that it had been almost a year since I had marked her seemed crazy to me. I knew part of the reason I had lost my ability to control my wings was because I had waited so long, so was my dizziness, headaches, weakness… the loss of my powers? I frowned. This next school year- I’d have to take her. Until then I’d have to find something to help me ward off these symptoms so I could function as a ‘normal’ Nephilim, other more serious concerns were closer to the surface, like Michael. Besides, I had to give mother some time to adjust in her new body and figure out how to help me not kill Annabelle. Yes, that would have to be my goal, I jumped, my thoughts completely shaken as the ‘sons of thunder’ sigil vibrated on my arm. The only sigil that seemed to be alive, the whorls dancing on my inner forearm.

“If you are quite done being morose, I have news.” Abrham’s voice muttered somewhat judgingly in my head. “It’s not safe to send via this mode of communication. Come at your earliest convenience.”

Great, just great- exactly what I needed, more problems to deal with. I watched Annabelle closely from where I stood under the lone streetlight, enjoying the fact that she occasionally glanced at me and smiled, her face definitely blushing.

“Unless you do not want answers?”

I wanted answers and Abrham knew it. Abrham was in communication with Amaar, who may or may not have wrenched me of my powers- given me whiter wings and God knew what else. Yes, Abrham held the key, and not just to somehow find Amaar. I cast one last glance at Annabelle and slipped into the shadows where my wings would be less noticed. Time to hail a cab, hop a plane and head back to the Eye of the Needle, find Hakeem, Abrham and Amaar; to avoid my father, my brother and my mother, their questions that I wouldn’t be able to answer… and Annabelle? Annabelle would still be here when I got back, she was after all, my scarlet woman.